


lionheart (taking over this town they should worry)

by idontevenwhat



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2016-07-25
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:24:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 57,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3692175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idontevenwhat/pseuds/idontevenwhat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Uni AU</p><p>clarke and lexa are both wildly overcommitted seniors running multiple organizations and rarely sleeping. lexa hits clarke with her motorcycle. no one has any chill at any point, there are multiple broken bones and like three people get expelled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Friends, Man. They're The Worst.

**Author's Note:**

> visit me at idontevenwhat.tumblr.com for the behind-the-scenes experience.

Alexandria was a very good driver. She looked both ways even going through green lights (because she knew they were the most dangerous), she always used her turn signal before turning and head-checked before changing lanes, and she had reflexes like a cat’s.

But there’s only so much you can do when a bicyclist emerges from a dead-end one-way street going about twenty miles per hour directly in front of your motorcycle at 1:30 in the morning.

“Oh, _SHIT_.” She kept her motorcycle upright and managed to swerve to avoid the crumpled body of the bicyclist.

She slammed on the brakes and jumped off her motorcycle. It was a sleepy neighbourhood where she’d never seen many cars, especially past midnight, so she didn’t think she’d need to worry about her motorcycle chilling in the middle of the road.

The bicyclist was already sitting up when Alexandria saw her, which was pretty impressive given that she probably should be dead. The woman was not wearing a helmet, blood was dripping down her face, she was holding one arm close to her chest gingerly, her other arm was skinned and bleeding, and she was standing up as Alexandria approached. So first piece of information about the bicyclist: she was crazy.

“Yeah, that was . . . that was my bad.” The blond-haired girl was walking in circles, her face white with pain.

Alexandria pulled out her phone and dialled 911.

“Yes, hello, I am at the corner of Hampshire and Monticello. There’s been an accident, and we need an ambulance. No, she’s conscious, but she’s bleeding and may have a broken arm. Yes, I can stay on the phone.”

“No, I’m fine, it’s totally okay.” Alexandria just gave the bleeding woman a look. “I mean, my arm might be a little broken, but I could probably get myself to the hospital.” The girl leaned over briefly, free hand on her knee.

“You likely have a concussion. I am not a medical expert, but I recommend sitting down.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a bio major, and I say I’m fine, so . . .” the girl waved her non-broken arm in the air and then sat down hard and possibly involuntarily. “Ow.”

“Anyway. The ambulance should be here shortly.” Alexandria sat down next the girl, who she finally got a good look at. Longish, ragged blond hair, an expensive-looking leather jacket over a sundress — a unique look, definitely drunk. The girl just silently looked back at her, and for one second, Alexandria thought she saw deep sadness in her blue eyes.

“Yeah, okay,” the girl sighed. “That’s probably a fitting end to tonight anyway.”

Alexandria tried to avoid caring about this girl or her problems. She just had to wait until the ambulance came.

“So how about you? What were you doing driving recklessly in the middle of the night? Raging party, too?”

Alexandria bristled. “I am entirely sober and my driving was impeccable. I regularly visit my teammates on weekend nights.”

“Teammates, huh? Not, you know, friends?” The girl sighed and looked away. “Well, I suppose I can’t blame you there. Friends, man. They’re the worst.”

Alexandria frowned. Clearly, this was no longer about her. “I take it your raging party was not as enjoyable as you were expecting.”

The girl laughed bitterly. “You probably don’t want to hear about it.”

Alexandria grunted. There was certainly no reason for her to care about this girl’s life story — she just needed the girl not to try and sue her — but a part of her wondered. “We’ve got some time, I suppose.”

“Oh, you know, just the usual. I found out my boyfriend’s old girlfriend, who he went to jail for and he’s maybe still in love with, is back in the country. I’m on disciplinary probation. Oh, and did I mention I just got hit by a motorcycle?”

She gave Alexandria a sarcastically bright smile, before dropping back into glum mode.

Huh. That was some shit. She wouldn’t have pegged this short young woman as someone who could handle any real problems, but then again, she was also holding a conversation despite clearly having a broken arm.

“Do you think I’m a fun person?”

“I beg your pardon?” Alexandria looked at the woman incredulously.

Her blue eyes were wide and so serious it was almost funny. “Like, am I someone who can have fun?”

Alexandria just blinked at her for a second. She had absolutely no idea what to say to this girl, so she just went with the first thing that came into her head. Blondie probably wouldn’t even remember it in the morning.

“You were biking about 25 miles an hour the wrong way down a one-way street while intoxicated at two in the morning. I don’t think an inability to have fun is one of your most prominent flaws.”

The girl blinked at her for a second, and then a slow, soft smile spread across her face. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

“No it is not. You’re intoxicated and your reasoning is clearly impaired.” Alexandria turned away from the girl. She thought she could hear the ambulance approaching.

“I am thinking perfectly clearly, thank you very much. Has anyone ever told you you talk like a thesaurus?”

Alexandria turned back to glare at the girl, but her patented death stare faltered when faced with the girl’s angelic smile. Oh no.

“Is that intended to insult me?”

“No,” the girl was entirely too cheery for someone blinking blood out of their eyes. “I was just wondering if everyone takes you as seriously as you take yourself.”

Alexandria frowned. She had to think about that one.

“Anyway, what’s your name? I can’t just call you Miss Thesaurus all the time. Well, I can, but you probably wouldn’t like it.”

This girl really wouldn’t stop, would she? “Alexandria. A pleasure to meet you.”

“Is it, though?” Before Alexandria could consider her question, the girl plowed on. “I’m Clarke. Clarke Griffin. Alexandria, huh?” She delicately pronounced Alexandria’s name, her lips quirking to the side after she finished. “Al-ex-ann-dree-ya.” Alexandria’s eyes were caught by the exaggerated movements of Clarke’s mouth, the girl’s tongue flicking her lips on the ‘al-’. “Ah-lex-on-dreah. Fancy. It’s very you.”

Alexandria tore her eyes away from Clarke’s lips as the ambulance finally drove up, and stood up shakily. This was certainly a memorable encounter.

“We should exchange insurance information, Clarke Griffin.”

“Nah.” Clarke waved her free arm, wincing in pain again. “My ride’s here anyway, so how about you help throw the remains of my bike in the back of the ambulance and we’ll call it good?”

“Clarke.” Did she just ‘nah’ to exchanging insurance? Alexandria was pretty sure that was the appropriate protocol after serious accidents.

“Seriously, Lexa, it’s fine.” The EMTs got out of the ambulance and headed over to them, cutting off their conversation.

Alexandria stood awkwardly while they asked Clarke questions about what happened and where she was hurt. They would occasionally look to Alexandria for confirmation, but she mostly just nodded, because Clarke covered all the important details.

“You’re definitely going to need to come with us, you have a broken bone and we’ll need to take X-rays, because you may have fractured ribs and serious head trauma.”

Clarke groaned. “Oh brother, not the brace. Lexa, promise not to take any pictures of me.”

Alexandria blinked for a second before realizing that Clarke was talking to her.

“Can I bring my bicycle? Lexa will grab it for you guys.”

“Sorry kid, there really isn’t room in the ambulance.”

Clarke’s face fell. “But . . . I can’t leave it here!” She looked at Alexandria desperately. “Lexa, please, look after my bike? I’ll exchange insurance information with you if you do!”

Alexandria supposed it couldn’t hurt. She inclined her head in agreement.

“Oh, thank you so much! You’re the coolest person who’s ever hit me with their motorcycle.” Clarke offered Alexandria her fist. Alexandria blinked at it, unsure what she was supposed to do, and Clarke sighed and put her hand on Alexandria’s shoulder instead. “Protect Buddy, Lexa. His life is your responsibility.”

Alexandria blinked as Clarke walked away and very much hoped that Buddy was the bicycle, because Clarke had looked deadly serious.

It wasn’t until the ambulance was driving away that Alexandria realized that Clarke named her bicycle “Buddy”. And that she only had a motorcycle to transport Buddy. And that she didn’t get Clarke’s phone number.

***

“Anya! I need to borrow your car.” Alexandria threw her keys into the key basket, placed exactly four meters from the door, and missed, her keys clattering off the table onto the floor. She moved the basket back every time it got too easy to throw her keys into.

She had already hung her helmet up, walked across the room, picked her keys up off the floor, and dug Anya’s keys out of the key basket before her roommate replied.

“You had better be shitting me.”

“I am doing the opposite of shitting you. Your car can fit a bicycle in it if I push down the seats, correct?”

“You need to fit a bicycle in my car at two in the morning.” It was not a question.

“That is a succinct summary. Would you be so kind as to show me how to move your seats back?”

Anya emerged from the tiny bedroom that they shared wearing sweatpants and one of her six soccer team warm-up shirts.

“You’ve never been one for jokes, Alexandria, please tell me you aren’t starting now, because we both have a six a.m. practice tomorrow.”

“Unfortunately, this is not a joke. A bicyclist jumped in front of my motorcycle.”

“Holy shit!” Anya was suddenly awake and looking her over. “Are you hurt?”

“No, no injuries, but she’s in the hospital, and she asked me to take care of Bu — her bicycle.” Alexandria blinked. She didn’t care if the thing was her responsibility, she refused to use Clarke’s ridiculous name for her bicycle.

“You woke me up at two in the morning because you needed my car to pick up what I assume are the mangled remains of a complete stranger’s bicycle?” Now it was a question.

“It . . . was her father’s, apparently. She refused to exchange insurance information unless I accepted responsibility for the bicycle.”

“That’s . . . interesting.” Alexandria just huffed. “Anyway, now that I’m up, I might as well come with. You might need my help and I have some important information for you.”

She walked out of the door right behind Alexandria.

“I assume this important information is in reference to ‘that art magazine bitch,’” Alexandria commented in a level tone as they climbed into Anya’s car.

“You bet your ass it is. She submitted a proposal directly to the Vice President of Student Life requesting 4,000 dollars _from our budget_ and suggesting that the costs could be recouped by sharing _our_ offices, using _our_ computers, and doing _our_ web design for us.”

“What?!” Alexandria was just about to pull away from the curb, but stopped to turn to Anya.

“Oh yes. She described our website as, and I quote, ‘embarrassingly obsolete’ and ‘completely unusable.’ She’s proposing to completely take over running our website, have her people post all of our content, and then use our computers for her art magazine. I found out about this yesterday, when Shirley told me she was planning on recommending that the Student Life committee accept the proposal.”

“ _WHAT_?!” Shirley Wallace, vice president of Student Life, functionally ran the day-to-day affairs of the entire college, so her ‘recommendation’ was more of an executive order.

“I need to respond to her by Monday. I will draft whatever plan you think best, editor, although you already know what my advice is. I have been of the opinion that this art magazine could be a serious challenge for some time now, if you will recall.”

Alexandria pursed her lips and considered it, finally pulling the car out into the street. Now was not the best time to make any final decisions, but she had to admit that Anya had a point. She’d seen the potential problems that Anya had pointed out a month ago when this art magazine club had first started proposing a collaboration with the newspaper in order to justify the large budget they would need. Alexandria had hoped to resolve the issue through a polite refusal and let the administration do the rest — Alexandria happened to know that the university was in dire financial straits that it wanted to resolve quietly, so she had assumed that something as expensive as an art and literature magazine would be dismissed out of hand. She’d underestimated the new club’s leader, though, who had apparently gotten a petition signed by over a thousand students regarding the importance of the arts, written several impassioned letters to administrators and prominent alumni, and created and printed a trial run of the proposed art magazine. To be honest, Alexandria respected the prospective organization — she’d seen a copy of the trial run and it had been impressively professional — and had been starting to root for them.

They’d found her weak spot, too. The administration had been pushing the newspaper, which Alexandria was proud to say had been in print for over a hundred years, to move into new media. Their current website was basically just a text archive that had been put together in . . . 1998, Alexandria thought. ‘Embarrassingly obsolete’ was a relative understatement to describe their website, and they had absolutely no social media presence. Her team hated the very idea of new media, but Alexandria saw the potential for getting students to actually read the paper regularly, possibly even _caring_ about the news, especially since there were so many juicy stories that Alexandria had planned.

Admittedly, she hadn’t been able to put anything in place yet, because she hadn’t found anyone capable enough to create a professional website from scratch. But that made her even less likely than her prickly editors to be willing to let some artist come in and take over their entire media branch.

Alexandria chewed at her lip as they reached the scene of the crash. She certainly had a lot of options for dealing with this, and she hadn’t even met with the art group’s leader in person yet, mostly because she hadn’t had time. Between classes, tutoring, her honors thesis, her internships, and advance planning for soccer, she’d barely had time to get her important stories developed for the newspaper. She just didn’t have time to deal with an entirely new problem right now.

“I’ve reached a preliminary decision. Do not begin anything until I give you my final decision tomorrow, but for right now, I’m inclined to agree with you — we just don’t need to waste time trying to deal with this art magazine and hoping they’ll be reasonable. Destroy them.”

Anya grinned as she threw the bent but relatively intact bicycle into the trunk of the Cutlass. “Yes, editor in chief.”

***

When Clarke woke up, there was someone in her hospital room. She sat bolt upright, not sure which of her friends would have found out what happened and also had the nerve to show up. Turns out, none of them.

“You’re safe, Clarke. So is your bicycle.” It was Lexa.

“Oh, okay, that’s . . . good.” It took her a second to process everything that had happened last night. What a day. “Do you see my phone?”

Lexa wordlessly gestured to a table on the side of Clarke’s bed. Her phone and jacket were on the table, and she was relieved to find that she was still wearing her dress. She reached for the phone, but of course the table was on the same side as her broken arm.

She gritted her teeth, ready to look very stupid, but Lexa was already there, handing her the phone.

“Uh, thanks.”

Lexa just nodded tightly as Clarke checked her phone. One message.

 **Benedict Arnold** **(10:03 am):** _Where are you? Bellamy is making terrible decisions in your absence._

Clarke groaned. She didn’t have time for this. She wasn’t sure if she was referring to Bellamy, or her traitor best friend, or her broken arm, or possibly just her entire life.

“Is . . . something the matter?” Oh yeah, and then there was this chick.

“It’s . . .” How was she supposed to answer that question? “Let’s just . . . exchange stuff.”

“Very well.” This was the first time Clarke had gotten a good look at Lexa. Besides being very drunk, it was hard to get a good look at someone’s face through a motorcycle helmet. Clarke watched curiously as the woman took what looked like a well-used legal pad out of her messenger bag, admiring her toned forearms and tight plaid flannel shirt. “I think I just need your health insurance information, phone number, address, and emergency contact. Here is my information.”

She ripped a sheet off, folded it, and placed it neatly on the table next to Clarke.

“Yeah, health insurance is in my wallet in my jacket, phone number is in my phone, and emergency contact . . .”

Lexa didn’t seem to pay attention to Clarke trailing off, just rifling through her jacket in a business-like fashion, finding her wallet and beginning to write down the numbers carefully on her pad. Clarke just watched her precise movements in comfortable silence, until she finished and looked up at Clarke expectantly.

“Emergency contact?”

“I . . . I don’t know.”

Lexa’s only reaction was the slightest of eyebrow movements. “Well, who’s coming to pick you up today?”

Clarke let out a bitter bark that she didn’t even try to pretend was laughter. “Yeah, that’s going to be nobody.”

“What?” Clarke thought she might just be sensing the tiniest bit of human emotion from Lexa.

“It’s a long story, but the short answer is that all of my friends hate me and neither of my parents are on this continent.”

The tiny eyebrow movement again. Lexa flipped the legal pad shut. “I am satisfied that I have the information I need should you choose to pursue legal routes.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because that’s something that might ever happen.”

Clarke could swear she saw just the tiniest lift of Lexa’s lips.

“Well, you’re cleared to go by the doctors. If you’d like a ride, I can give you one.”

“On your motorcycle?”

“Yes.”

Clarke had always wanted to ride on a motorcycle. “Are you sure that’s safe?”

“I have an extra helmet and my motorcycle is perfectly capable of accommodating two riders. Unless you’re concerned you won’t be able to hang on?”

Clarke’s face set. “I’ll be fine.”

As attractive as Lexa’s smooth face was, her complete lack of facial expression was really starting to piss Clarke off. “Very well. Gather your possessions.”

Clarke sat up and dangled her legs over the edge of the bed. She’d had one of the worst nights of her life, but she was feeling okay now. Hungry, though.

“How do you feel about grabbing some breakfast?”

“Thank you for asking, although I already ate.” Lexa paused, cocking her head slightly, still expressionless. “Although, I do have time before my next meeting, so I believe that would be acceptable.”

“Meeting?” Clarke tried to gauge the woman’s age. She looked younger than Clarke, but she acted like she was at least thirty-five, so really she knew exactly zero about Lexa. “What do you do?”

“I’m a student currently.” Lexa glanced meaningfully at Clarke’s jacket and Clarke sighed and got out of bed. How did this woman manage to be so demanding with so few words?

“So why do you have a meeting on a Saturday?” I mean, Clarke had a meeting today too, but that was just because she was wildly overcommitted.

“It’s for my honors thesis.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows. “Nice. What’s it on?”

“Verisimilitude and Belief Change for Nomic Conjunctive Theories.”

Clarke laughed. “Bullshit.”

“I know it sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite simple when you understand the concepts involved.”

“Mm-hm, I’m sure it does. Is that . . . psychology?”

“Philosophy.”

Clarke opened her mouth to make a snarky comment, but Lexa’s impassive face stopped her. She wondered how many times Lexa got obnoxious comments about her thesis.

“Would you be willing to explain it to me over breakfast?”

“I would like that very much, Clarke Griffin.”

Checking out of the hospital was surprisingly easy. They’d taken most of her information during the hellish last night, and thankfully her many X-rays had come back with no fractured ribs or internal bleeding, so she just grabbed her bottle of prescription pain meds and was right out the door. Lexa was a silent but comforting presence, holding Clarke’s jacket while she signed the forms.

Lexa handed her jacket back and starting walking out the door, and Clarke was struck by how much this morning didn’t suck.

“Hey, Lexa.” Lexa paused, but didn’t turn around. “Um . . . thank you.”

Lexa looked at her as she caught up. “For what?”

“For, you know, being here. Last night sort of . . . completely sucked, and this morning could have sucked too, but it didn’t, and that’s mostly because you were here. Also I would’ve had to walk home and that would be the worst. So thanks.”

Lexa’s facial expression didn’t change. “It was no trouble.”

Lexa continued on to her motorcycle, which looked old but functional. She gave Clarke a motorcycle helmet, which she put on quickly to disguise her scowl. She wasn’t sure why Lexa’s complete lack of reaction irritated her so much, but it did, although it seemed pretty ungrateful to complain about it.

Lexa brought the engine to life with a roar as Clarke climbed on gingerly, leaning into Lexa’s soft back and wrapping her good arm carefully around Lexa’s waist. Lexa’s braided brown hair was long enough under her helmet that Clarke could feel it brushing her collarbone.

“Is this okay?” The motor wasn’t loud enough that she needed to yell.

Lexa craned her head to look at her. “That is the correct form, yes. Are you prepared?”

“Yeah, let’s do this!”

At first, Clarke was a little disappointed with the motorcycle ride: it mostly just felt like a noisier and less tiring bicycle ride. She was looking down at the motorcycle, trying to find a better place to put her feet, when Lexa took a turn seemingly without slowing down and Clarke grabbed desperately at Lexa in a moment of panic.

Lexa, of course, ignored Clarke’s moment of terror, leaning into another quick turn. Clarke kept her head buried in Lexa’s back through the turn, but this time instead of panicking, she was fascinated by the subtle movement of Lexa’s muscles as she smoothly pulled out of the turn. Lexa was quite graceful on the motorcycle, in a way she decidedly wasn’t in conversation, and Clarke completely lost track of the route that they were taking, instead watching the slight movement of Lexa’s hands on the handlebars.

She didn’t realize they were stopping until the engine cut off, and Clarke looked up at the tasteful café Lexa had chosen. It was exactly what Clarke would have expected from Lexa: high windows, brick walls, even crawling ivy spreading over one wall. Before Clarke could deliver a snarky comment to Lexa, her phone buzzed.

**Incoming Call:** _Benedict Arnold_

Clarke hit ‘ignore.’

“So, do you have any favorites on the menu?” She asked Lexa as they entered the airy café, decorated with what Clarke was sure were the work of local artists. “Any good bagels?”

“I am partial to the everything bagel with cream cheese.”

“Of course you are.”

Lexa blinked silently as Clarke ordered a cinnamon bagel and coffee from the earnest-looking barista. Her phone buzzed again mid-order.

**Incoming Call:** _Benedict Arnold_

She ignored it again. “So, tell me about your thesis? I definitely recognized at least two of the words in the title.”

After the fifth time her phone buzzed, Lexa finally commented.

“Typically, one only calls this many times in the event of a serious concern requiring immediate attention, no matter how hostile the receiver may be.”

Clarke huffed. “Yeah, well, hostile might be an understatement.”

Lexa shrugged. “Someone who earned the epithet of a famous traitor in your phone would likely only call five times in a row if they knew that you needed to hear what they had to say.”

Clarke glowered. Her phone buzzed again. “Fine! But I’m coming back to finish this bagel.”

She walked outside before finally answering the phone. “Someone better be dead or dying, Wells.”

“Finally! Where are you?! Are you okay?!”

“Skip the small talk. Why are you calling me?”

“You weren’t at the meeting yesterday, and in your absence, Bellamy persuaded everyone that it would be a good idea to confront the newspaper editors and demand to use their computers. He emailed them from the _Delinquents_ account yesterday, and he’s hoping to meet today. In like two hours.”

Clarke groaned. Lexa had been right, this was a call she needed to take.

“And let me guess: he’s planning to be a giant dick about the whole thing.”

“Well, the only people he’s going to take with him are Octavia and Murphy, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it ended in physical violence.”

“Oh shitttt. Okay, I’ll . . . I’ll try and get there first, okay, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it. I’m pretty far away, and I have to stop by my house, oh, and I’m not even sure if I can really drive with a broken arm, so that’ll be —”

“A broken arm?!!”

“Don’t worry about it, Wells!” Clarke hung up and marched back in to the café.

Lexa looked up at her from the table they’d been sitting at — a repurposed wooden door, of all the stereotypical décor choices — the same expression of polite indifference on her face. “Clarke?”

Clarke sighed. “Hey, I’m really sorry. You were right, it was important, and I really need to go now. If it’s an inconvenience, we can wait until you’re done, oh, and I’m going to take this bagel with me —”

“Clarke.” Clarke took a deep breath. “It is not a problem.”

“Thanks for being understanding.” Clarke shoved the last half of the bagel into her mouth, and kept talking. Lexa had already seen her drunk and with a broken arm, so it’s not like she had any dignity left to protect. “I was actually really looking forward to hearing about your thesis, so I’m super sorry.”

Lexa stood up. “You were looking forward to hearing about nomic conjunctive theories?”

“Yes, actually, I was,” Clarke scowled. “Rude.”

Lexa laughed out loud in the middle of the café and Clarke gulped. Oh no. She was so hot.

“Very well, Clarke Griffin. Perhaps we shall meet again and I can tell you about it. In the meantime, I assume you need a ride?”

“Yeah, back to my apartment. Hopefully I can still drive my car.”

***

**Incoming Call:** _Anya Marina (Second in command)_

“I assume this is about the art magazine situation.”

Lexa — Alexandria drummed her fingers on her thigh, still sitting on her motorcycle. Clarke Griffin was having altogether too much impact on her.

“Sadly, yes. Their leader emailed me requesting a meeting, which would conflict with your thesis meeting today. I was planning on meeting with them. What are your instructions for the meeting?”

She stared at the doorway of the rather nice duplex apartment that Clarke had disappeared into, admiring the large variety of potted plants. It even had a lawn.

“Hear them out. Do not commit to anything. But if they’re polite and willing to work together, then play nice. We really do need someone to help with web design, and turning aside people who are volunteering just because we don’t approve of their communication methods is hardly a sound practice. At the slightest sign of hostility, remind them that we can crush them like bugs.”

“Yes, boss. Good luck with your thesis meeting.”

“Thank you. We are still planning to meet for a study session tomorrow at 2:30?”

“Of course.”

The small smile on Le — _Alexandria_ ’s face disappeared when she realized that there were two cars in Clarke’s driveway. There was no way that Clarke drove a white Honda Civic. This really shouldn’t bother her.

“Have you given any further thought to our forward situation?”

She heard Anya sigh. They’d been over this. “We can’t run a 4-4-2, you know that. Indra is the only one who’s remotely tolerable, we’ve got to run her as left forward. It’s not optimal, but I can’t see any other option.”

Alexandria was about to start throwing out ideas, but she was distracted by a shout from inside Clarke’s house.

“GET OUT OF MY HOUSE, FINN.”

Alexandria looked up in alarm. “Anya, I’m afraid I am being interrupted. I will speak to you later.”

“Of course.”

Alexandria pulled out a large hunting knife from her motorcycle’s storage, kept her phone in her other hand with 911 pre-dialed, and dismounted. She suspected that Clarke was prone to overreaction, but she wanted to be prepared.

The screen door slammed open, and a floppy-haired college-aged boy backed out of it, hands up in placation. Alexandria looked askance at the boy’s hoodie, shorts, and tennis shoes. She shouldn’t be needing her knife.

“Look, Clarke, can we talk about this? Nothing even happened! Raven and I —”

“No. Get out. I’m not talking about this now.” Clarke physically shoved the boy, who stumbled down the steps. “Oh, hello, Lexa, what are you still doing here?”

“I was taking a phone call and I heard shouts. Do you need any assistance?”

“No, thank you, unless Finn doesn’t leave _right now_.” She glared at the boy.

“Okay, Clarke, I understand you’re angry, but seriously, Raven and I are done, there’s nothing going on there. I choose you, and —”

“DO YOU SERIOUSLY THINK THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO HEAR RIGHT NOW?!”

Floppy-haired Finn took a step backward, honest confusion on his face, and even Alexandria couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow in surprise. She already felt an irrational dislike for Finn (for reasons that she had no intention of examining closely), but she was not at all sure that he deserved the level of vitriol Clarke was sending his way.

There was a moment of silence and then Clarke continued in a calmer voice. “Finn, I had a very bad night. I don’t have time to deal with this right now, because I have to go kick Bellamy’s ass. Call me later today and we can talk when I’m feeling more like a rational human being, okay?”

Finn gulped and glanced over at Alexandria, only to see her hunting knife.

“Okay, I’m going to give you your space right now. I’m sorry.”

That was mature of him, Alexandria thought grudgingly as Finn got into what she’d correctly predicted was his Civic.

“Hey, thanks for coming to check on — is that a knife?”

Alexandria shrugged. “You never know when you might need to defend yourself.”

“Uh . . . that’s . . . terrifying. Hey, I just realized I totally forgot to get your phone number. You’ve got mine from the, uh, legal situation, so do you think you could text me your number?”

“For what purpose?”

“Well, you said you’d finish explaining your thesis to me, yeah?”

“Oh. You aren’t reconsidering suing me?”

“What? No.” Clarke frowned at her.

“It was . . . never mind.” Alexandria sighed. Anya was right. She shouldn’t try humor, it wasn’t her strong suit. “I’ll text you. Have a good day, Clarke Griffin.”


	2. We Answer To No One.

The _Delinquents_ office was complete bedlam.

Clarke could hear Wells’ booming voice from inside the tiny basement room, barely audible over what sounded like a war chant. She stopped in the large communal office space outside the room and considered throwing back another painkiller before entering, but decided that someone might die in the time it took her to pull the bottle out of her bag.

Wells was the only person who shut up when she entered the crowded room.

“Just what is going on here?” She already knew the answer, she just wanted to see who would be stupid enough to answer her. Five bucks said it would be Bellamy.

“Oh, hey Clarke, maybe you can help us?” Easiest five bucks she ever made. “We’re trying to think of just the right way to say ‘give us your computers, you pretentious English major shits.’ Any ideas?”

“The newspaper has more people than us and they’ve been putting out a 20-page paper every week. Their budget is 16,000 dollars. You think they’ll give you anything you want because, what, they’re so intimidated by your pretty face?”

Her tart, ringing tone of voice finally succeeded at shutting up everyone else in the room. Bellamy flipped some of his impeccable black hair out of his eyes, his facial expression shifting between flattery and outrage.

“Maybe you’re okay with sitting around and hoping that these douchebags will willingly hand over the computers we need, and will just give us money for printing out of the goodness of their cold hearts, but the rest of us know how dumb that is. We’re going to demand what we deserve!”

He pounded his fist on the table and several of the fifteen or so people jammed into the tiny room yelled in agreement. Clarke glanced at Octavia, Bellamy’s brunette sister, who was glaring at her with inexplicable hostility.

“That’s fine with me. It’s just that the computers we need don’t belong to the _Grounds_. They belong to the university – specifically, the Student Life division. We’ve already demanded what we deserve from Student Life, unless you’ve forgotten the proposal that we all signed? The vice president of Student Life told me personally that they were tentatively planning on accepting our proposal. The only reason that we need to care about what the _Grounds_ thinks of us is because we’re going to be working together on those computers. You don’t have to like them, but going in there and pissing them off could give them a reason to get the Student Life committee to reject our proposal.”

“So instead of relying on a bunch of prissy English majors, we’re going to beg the administration for money and hope they’re feeling considerate? They’re the ones who turned us down the first time, they’re only going to help us if it’s in their best interest, and there is no need for us to bow and scrape to them like they’re our parents. This is OUR magazine, we make our own choices, and we answer to NO ONE!”

The uproar she’d heard when she approached exploded again. Most of the yelling seemed to be in support of Bellamy, but it wasn’t easy to tell when every single person in a twenty-foot room was yelling. Hot frustration boiled up in Clarke at how stupid these kids had to be to let Bellamy get them riled up, and she was about to open her mouth and call Bellamy out on how idiotic his plan was and how exactly he intended to get the money to print their paper all by himself, but she stopped herself. Cool down, Clarke. These were her peers, she couldn’t just yell them down, as much as she might want to.

Bellamy was waiting for her to respond, and even though he had a smug smile planted on his face, it struck Clarke as suspicious that he would be waiting for her to say something. Was this just some sort of power play for him? Or — his smile slipped as the hubbub started to die out and Clarke still failed to respond — maybe he wanted her to call him out, to pick a fight in front of the whole club. What did he have up his sleeve?

“Okay.” There was a beat of silence. “Let’s do it. We’ll meet with the _Grounds_ right now — we have something they want, they have something we want. We might as well see what they’re willing to offer, and if they don’t want to deal, we tell them to get stuffed and do it ourselves.”

“I’m in.” She glared at Wells. As if she needed his help.

“Shit, so am I.” Clarke’s eyebrows raised. She definitely was not expecting Murphy, their resident felon, to be on her side on this one.

“We don’t have time to vote on this, the meeting is in five minutes.” Bellamy looked annoyed. Good.

“Perfect timing, then. Octavia, let’s go.”

“Me?” Her glare faltered for a second in confusion.

“You’re the one Bellamy was going to bring, right?”

“Uh . . .”

“Perfect, then come on, we don’t have much time. In the meantime, Bellamy, start drawing up plans for funding the magazine ourselves, in case the newspaper tries to shut us down.”

She turned on her heel and strode out without waiting for a reaction. That didn’t go as badly as it could’ve, especially if she was right about Bellamy already having a plan for the magazine. This way it wouldn’t be his plan versus hers, it would just be the plan that she’d assigned to him.

That just left the newspaper right across the hall to deal with; oh yeah, and also . . . .

“Hey, Octavia?” She just grunted in response, so Clarke cut to the chase. “Why are you so pissed at me?”

“You mean besides the fact that you’re a callous bitch?”

Well, she had to admire Octavia’s bluntness.

“Uh, yeah, besides that.”

“You think just because your mom and dad were bigshots at this university, and your parents are rich, and your best friend’s dad is the university president, that you get to run everything. The chess club and the pre-med club might be okay with you bossing them around, but all of us are starting this magazine together.”

“I’m not bossing anyone around! I’m trying to help get this magazine off the ground, just like the rest of you.”

“Yeah, well, the rest of us don’t have astronaut parents or a cushy career as a doctor to fall back on.” Octavia advanced on Clarke, sticking her finger in Clarke’s face, made easy by the fact that she had a solid four inches of height on Clarke’s 5’6”. “This magazine is the only chance some of us have for a job after college, so we can’t afford some rich hobbyist coming in and calling all the shots just to get a little more ‘leadership experience’ for their resume.”

Clarke stared her down. “Fuck you.” She took a step forward, and Octavia took a step back. “My dad’s in jail. My mom’s in space, and she’s not coming back for six months. So first of all, you don’t get to say anything about my parents.” She took another step forward, and Octavia took another step back. “Second of all, I’m going to give you a little hint about the art industry: you don’t decide who’s a real artist and who isn’t.” Her last step pushed Octavia right up to the door to the _Grounds_ office. “I don’t care if you like me or not. Just don’t do anything stupid.”

She pushed open the behind Octavia and walked past her into the offices of the newspaper. It was way nicer, not to mention larger, than the _Delinquents_ ’ repurposed storage room in the basement. The room was dominated by a long wooden table (covered with papers, pens, textbooks, stylebooks, and the remains of various snacks) running down the center of the room, with computers at desks all around the outside, leaving just enough room for a person to walk between the computer chairs and the table chairs to reach the other door at the far end of the room.

A young woman with sharp cheekbones, sharper eyeliner, and a carefully neutral expression looked up from her laptop when Clarke entered.

“You’re the representatives from the art magazine?”

“Yep.”

The woman’s facial expression didn’t change. “Let’s step into the editor’s office.”

Once the woman turned her back to lead them to the far door, Clarke let herself smile at how much the woman’s emotionless demeanor reminded her of Lexa. Even the sharp eyeliner was similar. She should tell Lexa she had a doppelganger on the newspaper — it would be extra funny because Lexa would be all stuffy about it.

They stepped through the far door into a smaller and cleaner back room, with a single desk and a small table with four chairs placed around it.

“Please, have a seat, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Anya, and I am the managing editor of the _Grounds_.”

“My name is Clarke, and this is Octavia. You’re not the editor in chief?”

“The editor in chief could not be here today. I am authorized to speak on behalf of the paper.”

Clarke sat. The editor wouldn’t even meet with them? Dick.

“We were hoping to meet and discuss a potential partnership between our two organizations.”

“I assume your partnership includes you taking 4,000 dollars from us.” Anya met Clarke’s hopeful tone with a completely professional attitude that somehow still managed to be hostile. Clarke sighed. So it was going to be like this.

“Our partnership would involve us creating, maintaining, and updating a professional website and, at your discretion, social media accounts for your newspaper. The amount of work that would take just for week-by-week maintenance, uploading articles, and updating social media accounts would be a little over twice as many hours as one of your regular section editors, if our calculations are correct.” Anya raised her eyebrows and Clarke steeled herself to pull some numbers out of her ass to support her made-up statistic, but Anya stayed silent. “And that’s without even factoring in the cost of creating a website from scratch in the first place.”

“You would not be creating from scratch. We already have a website.”

Clarke didn’t laugh, because she wanted her disdain to seem professional. “Have you seen that website?” Anya grunted, and Clarke took that as acknowledgement. “Anyway, creating a website from scratch, graphic design for the website so it doesn’t look like that . . . website you have now, negotiating with Student Life for server space — assuming you want a .edu address —”

Anya held up a hand, and Clarke took a breath, thanking God she’d already had a two-and-a-half hour pre-planning meeting about the website.

“Are you trying to imply that we couldn’t do that ourselves?”

Clarke could smell blood. “I’m trying to give you a picture of how much time and money it would take to run a website that matches the professionalism of your publication. Of course, we can’t stop you from doing all of this yourself, which I’m sure would convince Student Life to let you keep your budget, so if you think you can do all of that for less than 4,000, then we’ve got nothing left to talk about.”

And then she waited. Anya had an impressive poker face and didn’t back down easily, matching Clarke’s impassive stare long after Octavia had started squirming uncomfortably next to Clarke, but finally she leaned back in her chair and huffed.

“I think we could be willing to consider —”

“ANYA!” They all looked up in surprise at the shout, which sounded like it originated entirely outside the _Grounds_ office.

Anya frowned a question at Clarke, who shrugged. There continued to be shouting, followed by what sounded like heavy objects falling to the floor, and the three of them all stood up at the same time. Clarke was closest to the door, so she was first to observe the scene in the main section of the office.

Oh shit. Bellamy appeared to be wrestling an unfamiliar short-haired dark-skinned woman for control of the tower portion of a desktop computer. The other parts of the computer were on the ground, including a keyboard, mouse, and a clearly broken monitor.

“Anya! This person was stealing a —”

“Bellamy, what the hell kind of idiot stunt did —”

“You know this person?”

Anya glared at Clarke, who glared at Bellamy, who yanked the computer tower out of the hands of the dark-skinned woman, who snarled at Anya, “I know him, he’s with the art magazine!”

“Is this true?” Anya’s voice was cold.

“Yes, he is, but we didn’t tell him to do this, he’s —”

“Get out of our offices, all of you. It seems I’ve gotten a clear picture of how the _Delinquents_ do business, and rest assured that the Student Life committee will also be informed about how you treat your business partners.”

“No, Anya, you don’t understand, we’ll pay for the monitor, this wasn’t intentional, we just —”

“Get. Out.”

“Look, bitch, we don’t need your —”

“Octavia, stop!” Clarke frantically got in front of Octavia before she could start advancing on Anya. She started pushing Octavia out of the door; she might be able to salvage something if she could get everyone out of here and talk to Anya one-on-one. “Just grab Bellamy and go, let me handle this.”

Octavia slapped Clarke’s hands off of her shoulders, shot one last glare at Anya, and stalked toward the door, pausing next to Bellamy by the door for a parting shot. “We’re not paying for anything — she’s the one who broke the computer.” She jerked a thumb at the woman still glaring at Bellamy.

“You thugs were stealing our computer!” the woman snarled back.

“What the hell did you call me, you stuck-up bitch?!”

Octavia was in the woman’s face before Clarke could even start yelling at her, the woman pushed Octavia back, Octavia lunged and shoved the woman, and the woman hit the table and fell over. As the woman got up, clearly ready to go another round, Clarke sprinted across the room and got in between them.

“Octavia! Leave!” She grabbed Bellamy’s arm and yanked him too. “Bellamy, take your sister and get out of here before anyone gets hurt.”

Surprisingly, Bellamy obeyed her, and was somehow able to get Octavia out of the room without even a last insult. It probably helped that he was six inches taller and two inches broader than everyone in the room.

“Listen, Anya, I swear, this didn’t have anything to do with —”

“You should leave now.”

Clarke sighed. She supposed there wasn’t much point in attempting to continue a meeting after a fistfight.

“I just want you to know that I’m truly sorry.”

Well, that was probably just about the worst that that could possibly have gone.


	3. I Don't Need You To Be Sorry

To: Bellamy Blake ([bdb17@students.um.edu](mailto:bdb17@students.um.edu)), Wells Jaha ([wtj14@students.um.edu](mailto:wtj14@students.um.edu)), Octavia Blake ([ogb4@students.um.edu](mailto:ogb4@students.um.edu)), … 14 others

Subject: Meeting tomorrow

Hey, guys. I know we just had a meeting yesterday, but something’s come up. Anyone who can make it, please meet tomorrow in the _Delinquents_ office at 3:00.

Regards,  
Clarke Griffin

***

To: Shirley Wallace ([swallace@um.edu](mailto:swallace@um.edu))

Subject: Regrettable incident earlier today

Hello,

I wanted to let you know about an unfortunate incident that occurred earlier today.

Myself and another representative of the _Delinquents_ magazine had arranged a meeting with a representative of the _Grounds_ to discuss our proposed partnership. Our discussion was interrupted by a disagreement between a member of the _Grounds_ and a member of the _Delinquents_ outside.

I was not personally present for the initial incident, although I understand that it was caused by the member of the _Delinquents_ entering the _Grounds_ office and handling their equipment without permission. That member has already been talked to, and may be asked to leave the _Delinquents_ staff, pending further discussion of the event.

The incident also escalated, with sharp words and physical contact exchanged between members of the _Delinquents_ and _Grounds_. Neither myself nor the managing editor for the _Grounds_ participated in the confrontation.

The entire staff of the _Delinquents_ regrets this incident greatly, and we still wish to pursue a partnership with the staff of the _Grounds_. In order to make this partnership work, we are willing to lkdvs

***

Clarke banged her head on the keyboard. Willing to what? What else did they have left to offer? Honestly, she was already sticking her neck out even pretending that she could fire Bellamy. They didn’t even have a real magazine yet, it wasn’t like they had an official leader, so technically no one could fire anyone, even if the rest of the team would let her fire Bellamy.

Emails were an extra pain to write with only one hand, and the stress was starting to make her arm throb. She reached for another of the painkillers. She really was trying to stick with the one-per-four-hours rule, although it was getting harder each time she hit the three-hour mark and her arm was already starting to kill.

She sighed and looked back at the email that she’d already spent nearly twenty minutes on. Professional writing was hard, especially when there was so much at stake — the jittery cold feeling of adrenaline still hadn’t left her system since the meeting four hours ago, even after she’d tried to calm down by doing her Ecology and Sustainability reading.

At least she’d finished it, though, leaving only a pottery project, a reading and written reflection for her Art and Contemporary Culture class, and the agenda for the pre-med club to do this weekend. Oh, and grocery shopping and laundry, although those weren’t essential.

She rubbed her face and looked at the time. 6:30. If she hurried and finished this email, she could probably do her pottery assignment tonight, get a head start figuring out the _Delinquents_ ’ next move tomorrow morning, do her Art/Culture reading before the meeting, do the reflection writing after the meeting, and then the agenda for the pre-med club that night and still get six or seven hours of sleep.

Oh, shit! She forgot she needed to pick up snacks for the chess club meeting Tuesday, because she wouldn’t have time Monday between labs, tutoring, and her night class. Oh, double shit, she couldn’t drive with her arm busted, and poor Buddy was out of commission.

Clarke was about to drop her head onto her keyboard again, but she didn’t really have time right now. She needed to get her bike back. She checked her phone, but Lexa hadn’t texted her yet. Hadn’t she gotten Lexa’s number? She remembered Lexa writing it down on a piece of paper and giving it to her — where did she put that paper? She checked her pockets, her bag: nothing. She frowned, trying to remember where she might have left it . . . her apartment? Please god, say she didn’t leave it in the hospital. Her jacket? She doubted it, but she checked, and slumped in relief when she found it.

_Hey, this is Clarke Griffin. I was wondering if I could pick up Buddy some time? I need to go drop him off at the bike shop._

She sent the text to the number Lexa had written down and then just sat for a second. She should really finish her email so that she could get started on her pottery project, because that was going to take forever with her arm like this. Instead she just read Lexa’s information. Lexa had nice handwriting: neat, but scrawling and loopy enough to have character. She put a little line through the seven in her phone number — Clarke had never seen that before.

Clarke sighed and added Lexa to her contacts. She really needed to finish this email. Her phone dinged.

 **Lexa (6:41 pm):** _Your bicycle is already being repaired. I apologize for waiting so long to send you a message; I intended to wait until your bicycle was fully repaired and I could bring it to you. According to the mechanic, it should be done in the next few hours. I hope that is acceptable._

Did . . . did she just use a semi-colon in a text message? Wait, more importantly, she’d brought Clarke’s bike to the shop for her?

 **(6:42 pm):** _Yeah, holy shit, thank you so much dude! Where should I pick it up from when its done?_

 **(6:42 pm):** _/how much money should I bring?_

**Lexa (6:43 pm):** _I have already covered the cost. I was planning to bring the bicycle to your apartment, unless somewhere else would be more convenient?_

Clarke wanted to argue, but honestly, she had approximately zero way of picking up Buddy anyway, so she could let Lexa’s generosity slip this one time.

**(6:43 pm):** _Thanks again! How much do I owe you?_

**Lexa (6:44 pm):** _You owe me nothing._

**(6:44 pm):** _Yeah no I’m giving you money whether you like it or not_

**(6:44 pm):** _Seriously it’s the least I can do_

Clarke had already given up and gone back to struggling to write the email to the vice president of Student Life when her phone dinged again.

**Lexa (6:52 pm):** _I have a compromise: perhaps you would be willing to buy me dinner tomorrow and listen to me discuss my thesis?_

Clarke smiled in delight and started tapping out a response.

**Lexa (6:53 pm):** _I wouldn’t bother you, but my advisor suggested that I adjust the style of my thesis so that it is more accessible for those not trained in the subject._

**(6:53 pm):** _Yeah of course! That sounds awesome!_

**(6:53 pm):** _I might need a ride tho …_

**Lexa (6:54 pm):** _That will not be a problem. Do you have a restaurant preference?_

**(6:55 pm):** _Do I seem like the sort of person who has restaurant preferences?_

**Lexa (6:56 pm):** _I’m afraid that I don’t understand the question._

Clarke shook her head. Lexa even texted in MLA format.

**(6:56 pm):** _You do realize you could’ve said the same thing with just a single ?_

**Lexa (6:57 pm):** _I continue to be confused by your language._

Clarke started typing a long reply where she intended to explain what she meant, make a comment about how Lexa texted like she was writing a term paper, and also pick a restaurant, but it was too much, especially one-handed.

**(7:02 pm):** _Never mind I’ll tell you in person tmrw_

She waited for a few minutes, but Lexa didn’t respond, so she grudgingly returned to her email. It had been nearly an hour now and it was important that she get this email to the dean before the _Grounds_ , or at least within an hour or two. She slapped a few more phrases about the whole staff regretting the incident and being still committed to the partnership and blah blah blah.

She sighed and sent it off. It would have to do, because she already had barely enough time to finish her pottery project before midnight, and then she was still going to have to walk home. That was going to suck.

***

At least the pottery workshop was a nice place, Clarke thought as she start setting up camp, dropping her backpack and espresso on one of the tables around one edge of the room. Sure it was a windowless underground room, but at least it had softer lighting than the fluorescent light of the bio labs. It also had way better acoustics, so she could fire up her ‘Pottery’ playlist on her laptop and easily hear even the softer songs over the quiet rumble of the potter’s wheel.

She’d already finished the wheel part of her project, though — all she had to do was finish up all of the details on the side, then fire it, then glaze it, then paint it. Glazing was pretty easy, and Clarke could paint fast, so the worst part would be finishing up the details on the pot. Sure, making a pot that looked like a coiled dragon was a super cool idea . . . until you were six hours in and barely half through with the details.

She spent the next three hours alternately wishing she’d picked something way easier, admiring how cool the pot was starting to look, and cursing her broken arm. Finally she put the pot in the kiln gently and slumped back. Almost 11. She could get this bad boy painted by midnight or 12:30 and still be home before 2.

Her phone dinged and she read the message without touching the phone with her clay-covered hands.

**Benedict Arnold (10:57 pm):** _Are you still at school? I stopped off at your house to drop off the bio books you lent me._

She started awkwardly tapping out an annoyed response with her clean hand, hoping it wouldn’t hurt her arm too much, when her phone dinged again.

**Lexa (10:57 pm):** _I am outside your apartment with your repaired bicycle, and there is a young man pacing back and forth on your front stoop. Should I be concerned?_

Clarke closed her eyes, wishing she could slam her head on the table without getting wet clay in her hair. There was too much to explain to both of them at once, especially if she had to try and peck it out with one hand. If only there was some way she could just TALK to them from here . . .

Clarke shook her head at what a complete and utter idiot she was as Lexa’s phone rang.

“Clarke?”

“Hey, Lexa, sorry, it’s just such a pain to try and text you with one hand, so I figured I’d just call.”

“I understand. Would you like a description of the young man on your porch? He appears agitated.”

“No, I know who it is, it’s Wells. He’s annoying and I hate him, but he’s not going to break in or anything. Not that I really have anything in there worth stealing anyway.”

“Are you not inside?”

“Nah, I’m still at school finishing up an art project. He’s just dropping some books off without asking. Do you think you can put the bicycle behind my car so I can grab it when I get back?”

“Of course.”

Clarke breathed out.

“Thank you so much, Lexa. Do you think you could tell Wells that he can keep the books?”

“I . . . am not sure that would be entirely appropriate. He would have no reason to believe a complete stranger.”

“He’ll recognize the bike. Plus, you’re a very convincing person. I wouldn’t ask, but I really don’t want to talk to him.”

There was a pause where Clarke thought that she could just barely make out Lexa’s breathing.

“This wouldn’t happen to be ‘Benedict Arnold’, would it?”

Curse her powers of perception.

“Maybe.”

Now she could definitely hear a sigh from the other end. “I have no intent of telling you what choices to make in your personal life, but, Clarke, there are some things that you can delegate to other people and some things you can’t.”

Clarke groaned. She hated when people dispensed wisdom at her. Especially when they were right.

“Fine, fine. I’ll call him now. Once he picks up, it’ll probably be safe for you to start dumping the bike.”

“Very well. Goodbye, Clarke.”

Clarke hung up, stood up, and paced around the room angrily for a second. Okay, okay, she could do this, hopefully without yelling. Or crying.

“Clarke?!”

“Hey, Wells.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“Uh, are you . . . in your house?”

“No . . . no, I’m at school. I’m not so much of a dick that I’d leave you sitting on my porch.”

“Oh. That’s . . . good to hear.”

Clarke couldn’t think of anything else to say, but then she remembered Lexa. “Oh! Hey, Wells, there might be a chick getting out of a car in front of my house. She’s dropping my bike off, so don’t worry about it.”

“Uh . . . okay. You mean the small but intimidating brunette with the tattoo?”

“Yeah, that’s — tattoo?”

“On her upper arm?”

“That’s news to me, but I never saw her upper arm. That’s Lexa.”

There was another pause, much more awkward than the ones with Lexa. She suspected she knew what Wells was going to say next, and she immediately panicked.

“Look, Clarke, I wanted to —”

“Yeah, she’s the one who hit me with her motorcycle and broke my arm.”

Another pause. Clarke started pacing anxiously, holding the phone — set to speaker — in the hand in the sling.

“She what?”

“Yeah, after I left the party last night,” she winced a little at the memory, “I was biking really fast and I sort of rode right in front of her. It was totally my fault and she was really cool about it. She met me in the hospital this morning and gave me a ride home.”

“Oh.” There were a lot of words that he clearly left unsaid there. “Look, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m sorry.”

Clarke screwed her eyes shut.

“You’re right, I don’t want to hear it. I don’t need you to be sorry, I need to know what the hell you were thinking. I need to hate you a little bit, and most of all, I need my dad back.”

She could hear Wells gulp through the phone. “You’re right. You didn’t deserve any of this.”

“Then why, Wells? WHY?! What was the point? What did you have to gain? The students deserve to know the truth about the shit this university has been doing, you AGREED with me! So why the hell would you turn around and tell your father? Are you really that much of a goody-two-shoes?”

Just breath from the other end, and a little bit of metallic clunking in the background that Clarke assumed was Lexa dropping off Buddy.

“I didn’t have anything to gain.”

Clarke gritted her teeth. “I know! So tell me why! Give me something to work with here, Wells.”

“I just . . . I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“So you figured that betraying me and getting my dad fired and arrested would be a good way to STOP me from getting hurt?”

There was a pause, and Clarke could hear some conversation in the background. She could recognize Lexa’s voice, but not what was being said.

“You’re right, it was stupid, your dad deserved better, you deserved better.”

“I don’t —” Clarke stopped, her breath starting to come shorter as she fought tears. “That doesn’t help, Wells.”

“I know. I’m sorry.” Clarke gritted her teeth, but Wells kept going. “But please, next time you break your arm or something, please just call me?”

Clarke sat down, staring at the phone in her hands, at the name ‘Benedict Arnold’, just slightly hazy around the edges from the tears she was holding.

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Alright.” Silence. “Thanks.” Silence. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Alright. Bye, Wells.”

Clarke breathed for a second, still a little shaky. She went to check on her pot. The kiln was filled with overcooked shards of pottery that were the shattered remains of her project. Clarke sat down hard on the ground of the workshop and started to cry.


	4. You Did It For Her

Alexandria frowned contemplatively at the young man standing on Clarke’s porch. Short dark hair, dark skin, plain but expensive clothes, a backpack clearly jam-packed with books — he certainly didn’t seem like a threat. Still, she didn’t know what he’d done to Clarke, and he’d obviously done something serious.

She waited precisely ten seconds after she saw Benedict Arnold answer his phone, then got out of the car slowly, goosebumps rising on her bare arms from the cold night air. She’d gone to the bicycle shop directly after her late-afternoon personal soccer training, and she had been much warmer then.

She carefully tried to ignore Benedict Arnold and Clarke’s personal conversation, but she had to walk right by the porch carrying Bu — Clarke’s bicycle, and either Benedict’s phone speaker was louder than it was supposed to be, or else Clarke was shouting into the speaker. Probably the latter, if she had to guess.

She lingered after she propped the bicycle against the back of Clarke’s car, her hands in her pockets to avoid the chill. The thing was, Benedict — Wells, rather, she might as well call him by his name — was about as sincere as she’d ever seen anyone. Predicting people’s intentions was a wildly inexact art, especially for complete strangers, but if Wells was truly the kind of person who would deliberately betray Clarke’s confidence, he showed absolutely no sign of it during his conversation.

While Clarke was yelling at him for the third or fourth time, Alexandria broke the silence.

“I can take those books to Clarke for you.”

He looked at her in confusion, and replied to Clarke, before pulling three large textbooks out of his bag and offering them to Alexandria with one hand. She had to take them out of his arms, which inadvertently allowed her to hear Clarke’s voice through Wells’ phone for the last part of the conversation. She gulped at Clarke’s choked voice.

She accidentally met Wells’ eyes and looked away quickly. He looked the same way she felt.

He hung up and she turned to go. “Lexa, is it?”

“Wells, I presume?” She couldn’t bring herself to correct Clarke’s nickname.

“So she told you about me.” When Alexandria turned back to look at him, he was looking at the ground. “Thank you, Lexa. For being there for her.”

He looked up to meet Alexandria’s eyes, and she straightened her back, keeping her face even.

“I did not do it for you.”

“Of course not,” he smiled slightly, a faraway look in his eyes. “You did it for her.”

Alexandria blinked. She couldn’t deny it. She wasn’t sure what he was trying to imply, but she wasn’t prepared to stand here and let Wells keep psychoanalyzing her.

“And how about you? Why did you do it?”

Wells frowned at her. “I’m sorry?”

“I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation, in addition to what Clarke’s already told me. I know relatively little about you, but it is clear that your relationship with Clarke is important to you. Important enough that you would not share her personal information without good reason, and certainly important enough that you would not hesitate to explain the circumstances that led to such an event. Unless, of course, you had a very good reason.”

He gritted his teeth, his foot tapping nervously, before turning away. “I didn’t have a reason.”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to figure Wells out. “So not a selfish reason, then. She might understand that, at least. An obligation? No, again, for the same reason. What could it be that would make her hate you more than she does now?”

His eyes were red-rimmed and she almost felt uncomfortable dredging up his past, but she was too curious about Clarke’s intense relationship with him.

“Lexa, I can tell you care about Clarke, so just trust me on this one, alright?”

“Oh.” Of course. “She wouldn’t hate you. She’d hate someone else. It wasn’t you who got her father arrested, was it? It was someone else, someone she cares about very much? I don’t know who that would be . . . her mother, maybe?”

Wells’ wide eyes told her everything she needed to know. Huh. She had a lot more respect for him now.

“You can’t tell Clarke. Please, Lexa.”

“You’re right. I am not the one who ought to tell Clarke.”

His face was pained. “You don’t understand. Her and her mom care about each other a lot, but they don’t always see eye-to-eye, and you’ve seen how she is with me. She needs her mom.”

“A mother who is willing to lie to her? If her relationship with her mother can only be sustained through lies, then I hope for her sake that it is not a relationship she needs.”

He clenched his fists, and turned away from Lexa to stare at the cheery yellow door of Clarke’s apartment.

“I can’t do that to her. Even if I wanted to, she wouldn’t believe me.”

“You can lie to her face, even knowing that it’s hurting her, but you can’t tell her the truth? Cowardice indeed.”

He whirled around as though she’d hit him.

“You don’t understand!”

“Don’t I?”

Her face was hard. People stopped thinking clearly when it came to the people they loved, did stupid things because it struck them as right, or because they couldn’t stomach the other option, or because they’d seen it in a movie once.

“I’m doing this for her.”

“No. If Clarke could choose, she would not choose for you to lie to her, and you know it as well as I do.”

His face crumpled and he turned away again. Alexandria never wanted to reach that point, where her feelings for someone destroyed her so completely that she could no longer tell what was right and wrong. Or, she supposed she should say, she never wanted to reach that point again.

There was a honking noise as Wells cleared his nose, but when he turned around he was not only composed, but smiling sheepishly.

“I can see why she likes you. You don’t take people’s shit.”

She allowed her eyebrows a slight raise. She couldn’t decide if she was more flattered by his description of her, or by the fact that he’d said Clarke liked her.

“I could say the same for you.”

He smiled fully. “I don’t believe you, but thanks for saying it. Well,” he slung his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll see you around some time, maybe?”

“Perhaps.”

She stepped out of his way and he walked across the lawn and down the sidewalk. Apparently he’d walked here . . . which reminded her that Clarke had no ride home and was going to be up late finishing an art project. She chewed her lip, staring at Clarke’s door while she thought.

She already had the Cutlass, and Anya had taken her motorcycle to meet some of the soccer team, so Anya wouldn’t need a ride tonight. It was getting quite cold, and the last thing she’d seen Clarke wearing was just jeans and a college t-shirt. She had her copy of _An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding_ in her backpack anyway, so she could get ahead on her reading, and the lobby of the art building was a great place to read anyway.

She should probably stop and grab a coat or something, though.

***

Alexandria had barely sat down in the abstractly-designed chairs in the art building lobby, pulled out her book, and made herself comfortable (she might be skeptical about the design choices of the strangely curved chairs, but she had to admit that they were quite ergonomic), before Clarke had stormed out of the stairs from the basement and right past her chair without even slowing down.

“Clarke!”

Clarke froze and didn’t turn around for a long second. When she did, Alexandria could tell from her red-rimmed, puffy eyes that she’d been crying.

“What are you doing here, Lexa?”

“Just enjoying the comforts of these post-modernist chairs.”

Clarke crumpled her face up in the saddest confused look Alexandria had ever seen, and she sighed. Why did she keep trying humor?

“I came to give you a ride.”

“It’s fine, I’ll walk.” Clarke turned around glumly, and Alexandria glowered. This was the stupidest, most obstinate girl she’d ever met, and there was no way she could leave her.

“It’s 39 degrees out, you’re only wearing a t-shirt, and your apartment is a little over 2 miles away.”

Clarke shrugged and walked out the door of the art building. Oh, of all the — Alexandria quickly threw her book in her backpack and ran after her.

“Clarke!”

“Look, Lexa, I appreciate that you came to give me a ride, but I’d rather walk home right now.” Clarke didn’t even turn around to look at her.

“Clarke, I respect your choices, but if you choose to walk home right now, like this, then I will drive alongside you the entire time with my windows down playing the late night smooth jazz station as loud as the speakers will go.”

Clarke finally stopped walking and looked at her. “Is that a threat?”

“Absolutely.” Anything to keep Clarke talking.

Clarke shifted on her feet pensively. “What if I actually like smooth jazz?”

Alexandria shrugged, keeping the smile off her face. “ _Que sera, sera_.”

At last Clarke smiled. “I didn’t know you took French. I feel like I would’ve seen you in class.”

“I don’t.”

“Then how did you . . .”

“It’s a very common saying, Clarke. Many people who are unfamiliar with French would recognize it.”

“Really? I’ve never heard it.”

Alexandria sighed and shook her head in exaggerated disappointment. “Whatever are they teaching children in schools these days?”

Clarke scoffed, but Alexandria could hear the laughter she was hiding. “Uh, excuse me, just because I don’t know obscure pretentious bullshit and instead had to translate it, from French, because I know French —”

Alexandria waved a hand airily. “Oh, whoo-hoo, so you’re bilingual. But if you don’t know every exact piece of information I do, then really what’s the point?”

Clarke giggled a little bit and Alexandria changed her mind. She should try humor all the time.

“So where’s your car?”

Clarke walked behind Alexandria in comfortable silence across campus as Alexandria tried to control her curiosity about Clarke’s emotional wellbeing. During the conversation with Wells, at least the part that she’d overheard, Clarke hadn’t seemed broken up enough to be crying and storming home in near-freezing weather.

“Okay, you were right, it is cold out here.”

Alexandria turned to see Clarke shivering. Maybe she shouldn’t have parked on the exact opposite side of campus to the art building, but it was the easiest parking lot to get to and she didn’t mind walking.

“Here, take my coat.” She slipped off her green military-style coat and handed it to Clarke.

“No, I couldn’t —”

“Clarke. Take the coat. It’s a pretty short walk and I have a warm shirt on.”

Clarke sighed, shivered again, looked at Alexandria’s green and blue plaid flannel shirt, which was easily the warmest shirt she owned, and took the coat.

“Oh my god, this jacket is so warm!”

Alexandria smiled as she looked at Clarke, who zipped the coat, which was slightly too long and slightly too tight, all the way up to her chin. Clarke folded her arms over her chest and she looked . . . Alexandria looked away before she could embarrass herself too much by finishing that thought. She was glad she’d stopped at home to grab her coat.

“So I, uh, overheard some of your conversation with Wells.”

Clarke sighed and Alexandria watched her closely, but she didn’t seem particularly emotional about it.

“Yeah. I should thank you for that, by the way. It wasn’t fun, but . . . it was something I needed to do.”

Alexandria inclined her head briefly, her version of a nod. “I talked to him a little, after. He seems like an honourable person and a good friend.”

She hesitated, trying to decide how much she should hint at, and Clarke responded before she could reach a decision.

“Yeah, he was my best friend, before . . .”

There was silence again, Alexandria wrestling with herself over whether to push Clarke or not. On the one hand, she wanted to know the details much more than she expected she would, but on the other hand, it was Clarke’s story, not hers, and Clarke should tell it when Clarke was ready.

“Oh, fuck it, before he got my dad fired and arrested.”

Alexandria blinked. So she wouldn’t need to push Clarke at all.

“I beg your pardon?”

“My dad . . . he used to be a professor here. He accidentally found out about . . . some stuff that the university was doing that they shouldn’t be doing.”

Alexandria raised her eyebrows. She suspected she might have an idea what that stuff might be — she might actually be planning on printing it in the newspaper, in fact.

“He wanted to tell the other professors, and the student body, and everyone, basically, but the university told him that it was illegal, that it was in his contract that he couldn’t release financial details like that. But he was going to do it anyway. My mom didn’t want him to, thought it would ruin us and ruin the university for no reason, but I thought — think — he was right. I was going to help him, and I asked Wells to help us. He’s the son of President Jaha, so he could get us access to the president’s newsletter, and we could send the information out to everyone from the university president’s account. Wells said he would help us, and then . . . they arrested my dad. They knew where the information was on his computer, which made it technically corporate espionage or some bullshit that their lawyers drummed up. I told them I was helping him, that I’d release the information too, and so they put me on academic probation.” She sighed. “I didn’t have the information, and I don’t know any of the specifics, so it’s not like I could release anything if I tried. And I still have no idea why Wells would have turned us in. He had to know what would happen.”

Alexandria blew out a long breath. God, it was so obvious from this story what had happened.

“And the university told you that Wells had turned you in?”

“No, but I mean, who else could it be?”

Alexandria stayed silent, trying to figure out what was alright for her to say. This was clearly very personal for Clarke.

“Lexa, what do you mean?”

Clarke’s eyes were suddenly very sharp and Alexandria tried to stay nonchalant.

“Well, I talked to Wells a little, and he cares about you very much. He certainly didn’t seem like the type to betray such an important secret, especially if there’s nothing in it for him.”

“I know, that’s why I asked him for help in the first place. He seemed sincere about wanting to help, too.”

Alexandria kept a carefully neutral face.

“But he was the only one I told! It couldn’t have been anyone else!”

Alexandria refused to change her facial expression.

“What are you trying to say, Alexandria? There’s no one else it could have been!”

They reached the Cutlass finally, and Alexandria was starting to regret bringing this up. She’d thought to plant the seed so that Clarke would be more likely to believe Wells, but Clarke was much sharper than she’d thought, or else had already started to reach many of the same conclusions she had.

She unlocked the car, a convenient excuse to avoid meeting Clarke’s eyes, got into the driver’s seat and leaned over to manually unlock the passenger door.

Clarke got in, and now she was getting close to crying. Alexandria had made a horrible mistake.

“Look, Clarke,”

“It wasn’t Wells, was it.” Alexandria gulped. “It was my mom. My mom got my dad fired and arrested, and then she was conveniently offered a space mission right after. And Wells let me think it was him because he didn’t want me to hate my mom. Oh, and then my mom let me think that. God, I’m an idiot.”

Alexandria was absolutely petrified. She had no idea how to console Clarke, no idea what the right thing to say was, and if Clarke started crying, she was pretty sure she might crash the car.

“I’m an idiot and I was a complete dick to Wells and I’m on academic probation and I ruined my pottery project and I’m probably not going to sleep for the next few days to get all of my homework done.”

“You ruined your pottery project?” That would explain why she’d been done so early.

“Yeah, it exploded in the kiln. I’m not sure if it’s because I was distracted by talking to Wells, or if I’d screwed it up all the way back when I first made it. I suppose it doesn’t matter now. It took me like 8 hours to make, and the project is due Monday, so I’ll be spending every spare second tomorrow finishing it, and then I’ll still have all of my other homework.”

She buried her head in her hands. Oh thank god, finally a problem that Alexandria could help with.

“You broke your arm this weekend and spent a night in the hospital. I’m reasonably confident that any professor at this university would accept that as a fair excuse to be late with a project. Who’s your professor?”

“Professor Wayne-Luck.”

“Oh! I know him, he’s kind and very laid-back. Just email him that you broke your arm and will need an additional week to complete your project, and he’ll undoubtedly understand.”

“A whole week, you really think?”

“Absolutely. I’ll send him an email.”

“Really? You’d do that for me?”

Alexandria glanced over to see how Clarke was looking at her, and quickly turned back to the road. If she met Clarke’s eyes for too long, she doubted she’d be able to look away.

“It is no trouble, Clarke. I did hit you with my motorcycle. And I understand what it’s like to have a tough week — so will your professors.”

“You understand tough weeks, huh? What do your tough weeks look like, Miss Completely Put Together? Accidentally being two minutes late to class? Only getting seven and a half hours of sleep instead of the usual eight to nine?”

Alexandria smiled. “I’m flattered that you think so highly of me. But no, I . . .”

She stopped the car in front of Clarke’s house and took a deep breath. Was she really going to do this right now? She supposed Clarke had already shared far more personal information, and surprisingly, she trusted Clarke to understand.

“I had a week, well, semester, really. My girlfriend died.” Clarke gasped. “It was a home invasion, according to the police. I had been at school all night, and she was alone when it happened. I was quite distraught, but my associates and professors were understanding, and I was able to keep my academics from suffering.”

“Shit, dude, I’m sorry, that sucks. What about you?” Clarke put her hand over Lexa’s on the gear stick. “Did you have anyone to talk to?”

“I did not need anyone. I was able to control myself and I was able to finish the semester with my usual degree of competence.”

“What about . . . her? Did you miss her?” Clarke’s voice was soft, but her question still hurt.

“Yes.”

There was a long silence. Clarke didn’t speak, but she also didn’t remove her hand from Alexandria’s.

“I’m sorry.”

“It is in the past. It’s over now.”

“Yeah, I wish that’s how it worked.” Alexandria could hear Clarke’s bitter smile without raising her head. She let the silence return, enjoying the warmth of Clarke’s presence, a warmth she hadn’t felt in a while.

All too soon, Clarke spoke. “Thank you for the ride. And . . . everything. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She squeezed Alexandria’s hand softly and got out of the car. Alexandria didn’t start the car until after she watched Clarke walk across her small lawn, unlock her door, and enter her house. It wasn’t until Lexa walked in the door to her own apartment that she realized that Clarke still had her coat. The thought made her smile as she fell asleep.


	5. Turnabout Was Fair Play

To: [awaynelu@um.edu](mailto:awaynelu@um.edu)

Subject: Pottery Project

Hello,

I’m sorry to bother you over the weekend. I’m in your pottery and ceramics class, and I’m afraid I’ve had an unfortunate weekend. Last night I was working on my pottery project, but it exploded in the kiln, just like you warned me it might. I was going to redo the project today, but it will take me a long time, in part because I was involved in a crash Friday night on my bicycle where I broke my arm.

I wanted to ask if it might be possible to have an extra day or two to complete my project? I understand that you have warned us about the possibility of our works breaking in the kiln, and I take full responsibility for not having prepared any back-up options. Should this not be possible, I will completely understand, and will ensure that I have a work prepared for Monday.

Thank you for your time,

Clarke Griffin

***

Augustus Wayne-Luck ([awaynelu@um.edu](mailto:awaynelu@um.edu))

Re: Pottery Project

Yeah, of course! Your friend Alexandria told me about your troubles at church this morning, and it’s no problem.

You’ve been a great student, and I completely understand that stuff happens. Take as much time as you need to finish your project, and let me know if you need any help or have any questions!

***

Clarke blinked at her computer when she opened it up from her usual study spot in the huge sunlit lobby of the biology building. The place was nearly deserted, although there were a few students there studying at 1 in the afternoon on a Sunday — almost certainly fellow pre-med students, judging by the organic chemistry textbooks, stacks of flash cards, and confused frowns at ball-and-stick models of carbon rings.

Clarke shuddered sympathetically, glad she got that one out of the way early sophomore year. Four of the six students she tutored were there for organic chemistry help, and apparently a whopping 40 percent of the students who applied for a tutor were doing it either for intro chemistry or organic chemistry. The classes were clearly designed to weed out the students who didn’t have the study habits to cut it in med school, but it was still a nasty sort of trick in Clarke’s opinion.

The three students sitting around one of the large tables in the center of the lobby were joined by two more students, who also pulled out books and notes. Clarke smiled as confused frowns turned into ‘oh’s that she could see from across the room. These kids would be okay, even if they might not be able to see it now.

She returned to reading her godsend of an email. As much time as she wanted? Did he mean, like, a whole week? She’d been praying for an extra day, so she could sleep a little bit tonight and turn in something recognizable as art, but he’d said as much time as she wanted? If she had all week and next weekend to do this, she could redo her dragon pot, which had been gorgeous when she put it in the kiln.

She started typing out a reply, but got distracted re-reading the first paragraph of his email. Lexa went to church? Lexa went to church with her adorable beardy pottery professor? Lexa went to church with her young professor and talked to him about Clarke? Lexa talked about Clarke to her professor and then her professor referred to Lexa as ‘your friend Alexandria’?

Clarke liked the sound of that. And she supposed that if Lexa got to talk about her, then turnabout was fair play.

***

Clarke Griffin

Re: Pottery Project

Thank you so much! My sleep schedule will thank you, although the coffee shop might not. I don’t mean to push my luck, but would next Monday work to turn in my project? I can try and have it finished for any time this week, although it will be difficult for me to work on it between my other obligations.

I’m glad to hear that Lexa has told you about me! Hopefully she didn’t make me sound too sad and pathetic, although she did give me a ride from the hospital, so I suppose she has the right. The next time you see Lexa, you should ask her how exactly I ended up in the hospital. She probably hasn’t told you because she’s embarrassed, even though it was completely my fault.

Thank you again!

***

Clarke started working on her Art/Culture writing reflection, since it would be easy to whip something sincere-sounding together in twenty minutes. She’d done the reading on the 45-minute walk over, and it was mildly interesting, so a quick page of reflection was hardly even a real assignment. Before she’d even finished, though, her professor had replied.

***

Augustus Wayne-Luck ([awaynelu@um.edu](mailto:awaynelu@um.edu))

Re: Pottery Project

Monday works fine.

I’ll make sure to ask her! I’m glad to hear Alexandria (or Lexa, should I say?) has some friends like you. She’s a quiet person, and I know she’s been through a lot in the last year, so it’s good to know she has people around her. Maybe I’ll see you at Healing Water some time?

***

Clarke continued to be surprised by Wayne-Luck, although maybe it was Lexa that was the real surprise. Apparently Lexa had made quite the impression on Wayne-Luck, and apparently she was close enough with the tall, bearded professor that he knew her personal life story, which didn’t strike Clarke as something that Lexa would share easily.

She also wasn’t sure how to break it to her professor that her and Lexa weren’t really that close. I mean, they’d only met a day and a half ago, and it wasn’t like they were best buds who hung out and shared each other’s life stories. She supposed they’d bonded a little bit, and Lexa had helped her out with Wells and listened to her sob story about her parents, and she was certainly looking forward to seeing Lexa today, but it wasn’t like they were close. She shrugged off Lexa’s gorgeous army green coat and rolled it over the back of her chair without getting up, because it was too hot to wear the coat in the lobby with the sun beaming down through the entirely glass ceiling, but the coat was soft and smelled nice, so she wanted to still feel it on her back.

She certainly had no intention of going to church any time soon, assuming that was what ‘Healing Water’ was. She sort of had a hard time imagining what kind of church Lexa would attend — well, she had a hard time imagining any church at all, having never so much as been inside one before, but she especially couldn’t imagine Lexa sitting in a pew somewhere, directing her intense gaze at some middle-aged clown with a guitar singing some insipid praise song.

Then again, if Lexa asked her to come, she supposed she wouldn’t say no.

She had a new email.

***

Abigail Griffin ([Abigail.H.Griffin@nasa.gov](mailto:Abigail.H.Griffin@nasa.gov))

Skype some time soon?

Hello Clarke! I’ve missed you so much. I know you’re busy, but I’d love to see your face and catch up a little bit. Would some time tonight work to have a quick Skype call?

***

Clarke gritted her teeth, suddenly absolutely outraged. Now that she knew what her mom had done, Clarke couldn’t believe that her mom had the audacity to keep chatting casually with Clarke as if nothing had happened.

She started typing a profanity-laced rant, but stopped herself. First of all, this was going to her mom’s NASA email address, and that would just be weird. Second of all, she didn’t want to write some silly rant down in an email. She wanted to look her mom in the eyes.

***

Clarke Griffin

Re: Skype some time soon?

8 works for me.

***

2:45. She’d finished her Art/Culture assignment and finished typing up the agenda for the pre-med club meeting. Now she just had to go to the _Delinquents_ meeting and pray that Bellamy had a plan that wasn’t technically illegal, because frankly she had just about nothing. They’d already begged alumni, the art department, Student Life, and the newspaper for money with no success, so unless they could crank out 4,000 dollars from a bake sale and a car wash, there didn’t seem like there were many more options.

Besides, Bellamy was an asshole, but he could probably come up with something at least somewhat reasonable, right?

***

“So your plan is grand larceny.”

Of course it was.

“As long as we use their computers to transfer out the money from their account, then really all that will happen is that they lost 4,000 dollars.”

“And when we just happen to gain 4,000 dollars, no one will notice?”

“We say that we raised the money ourselves. Since we won’t be officially a part of the university, it’s not like they can force us to reveal our finances.”

“Sure, but the police could.”

“If we cover our tracks well enough, there will be no reason for them to open a police investigation.”

Clarke put her head in her hands. Why on Earth had Bellamy managed to plan out an entire heist?

“How exactly are we going to cover our tracks? I don’t know anything about computer hacking, do you?”

The door burst open.

“Did someone say computer hacking?!” A grinning woman with dark hair and light brown skin stood in the doorway with her arms on her hips. “Ha, yeah, sorry about that, but I got here late and didn’t want to barge in until just the perfect moment. I’m Raven Reyes and I’ll be your computer expert this evening.”

Oh shit. Oh really shit. Clarke put her head down and hoped that Raven wouldn’t recognize her. It was possible, since the only time they’d met they’d both been supremely drunk and Clarke had been very differently dressed. On the other hand, they’d only met two days ago and Raven had punched her in the face.

Finn’s ex-girlfriend continued. “I’ve been recently employed in the IT department, and trust me when I say that it will be an absolute cakewalk to steal some money for you.”

Clarke had a host of sharp questions she wanted to throw at this idiotic plan, but she didn’t want Raven to notice her. In her second of hesitation, Wells spoke up, which was probably the worst thing that could have happened.

“I can’t believe you’re seriously walking in here and saying we should steal money from anyone to fund our paper. That’s not okay, and we all know it.”

“You make a good point, Wells.” Bellamy had the ghost of a smile that Clarke recognized as the early victory celebration smile. It was too late for Clarke to stop this train wreck. “This can’t just be my decision, it should be all of ours. That was the point of making this magazine, wasn’t it? To be ours to express ourselves, to have a place where we could control our own artistic choices, to show our work to the world on our own terms.” Oh no, he was speechifying. “So what do you all say? Do we have it in us to take money from the newspaper and administration that have refused to allow us to exist? Or is that just ‘not okay’? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m ready to make my own decisions and show the world what we can do. Who’s ready to misbehave?”

Murphy and Octavia were first on their feet, and the rest of the club followed in sadly predictable fashion. Clarke knew the best choice for her mental health would be to just walk out now, but she could still picture Octavia’s face telling her that the magazine was all she had. At least she could try and minimize the amount of people getting expelled.

Wells and Bellamy looked equally shocked when she stood up. Everyone turned to look at Wells, now the only one left sitting.

“You know I can’t let you do this.” He focused on Clarke when he said it.

“What’re you going to do, Wells, run off and tell daddy?” Clarke winced at Bellamy’s words. It was exactly what she would’ve said yesterday, and now she had to run through every time she’d said something similar to Wells and relive the hurt in his eyes each time.

Wells met her eyes and then looked down. “No. But I refuse to be a part of a magazine run on stolen funds.”

Bellamy shrugged. “Fair enough.”

Wells walked out of the room without another look at Clarke. God, she really hoped that she hadn’t completely destroyed her relationship with her best friend over something he hadn’t even done.

“Well,” Bellamy cracked a grin. “No time like the present!”

Clarke started to bite her tongue . . . fuck it. “How are you going to get into the _Grounds_ office when it’s unlocked without being seen? You do need to be on their computers, you said?”

She tried to ignore the dawning recognition in Raven’s eyes and focus on Bellamy.

“Since we happen to have someone on staff who’s an actual thief, I thought we’d just break in. Like right now, perhaps.”

Murphy stepped forward, flipping his slimy hair out of his eyes and grinning a slimy smirk. Ugh.

“Fine, then I’m coming with you.”

Bellamy’s eyes raised. “And why would you want to do that?”

“To make sure it gets done right. Or do you not actually want anyone from the club seeing what you’re planning on doing?”

Bellamy blinked. Got him. “Just don’t get in our way. As for the rest of you, it looks like you can start planning our first issue!”

Clarke rolled her eyes as Bellamy fist-pumped his way out of the room to jubilant shouts, but she followed him nonetheless. Behind her were Murphy and Raven.

“So . . . you’re Clarke, huh?”

Clarke winced at the sound of Raven’s voice. She really hoped the Latina wasn’t going to punch her again.

“Look, Raven, I swear to God I didn’t know you existed until a week ago. Me and Finn are taking a break because of all this, and I just —”

“Whoa, whoa, dude, chill. I was pissed, I jumped you, you ate it like a champ, we’re good now. I just . . .” she looked down briefly. “I just didn’t think Finn would move on so quickly.”

Clarke looked at her curiously. Once she got over how intimidating Raven was and the fact that she didn’t quite understand everything Raven had just said, she realized that the girl couldn’t be much older than her, thin and wiry but still very pretty, even with a flash of sadness in her dark eyes.

“Can we not do the relationship drama right now?”

Clarke glared daggers at Murphy for interrupting, but Raven ignored him to address Bellamy instead.

“Who’s this asshole, again?”

Bellamy sighed as he came to a stop in front of the outer door to the Student Leadership offices. “He’s the lockpick. And the one who’s going to stay outside and keep watch, right Murphy?” There was an edge to his voice that made it clear that he was not actually asking.

Murphy glowered, but dutifully bent to the doorknob. The lock clicked quickly and Clarke gulped as she entered the office and her first foray into felony.

Clarke glanced around the main office with interest as Bellamy marched straight for the editor in chief’s office, followed by Raven. It was nice in here. She wished there was a way to patch things up with the _Grounds_ , because their office wasn’t just professional, it was . . . comfortable. There were pictures and article clippings and inside jokes taped, pinned, or scrawled on every surface, although the table was clear enough for anyone to work at. Someone had left three or four textbooks stacked neatly on the table — Anya, Clarke assumed — and each desk had a set of drawers underneath, some of which were open to display the personal possessions of their owners: hats, books, laptop chargers, and one that had what was definitely an egg.

“She the one that broke your arm?”

Clarke turned in confusion to Murphy, who was still loitering in the doorway.

“What? Lexa? Where?”

“That Raven chick.” He nodded in the direction of the editor’s room. “She said she jumped you, did she bust up your arm?”

Oh. “No, she just punched me once or twice, didn’t even give me a black eye. I broke my arm when I got hit by a motorcycle biking home.”

Murphy’s eyebrows raised. “Well, well, princess Clarke’s got a bad girl streak.”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Murphy, you don’t know jack shit about me.”

He chuckled. “Clearly I don’t.”

The admiring look he gave her creeped her out so much that she decided she’d rather be in an enclosed space with Bellamy and Raven.

“How’s the computer hacking going?”

They both jumped slightly as she entered. Suspicious.

“It’s going fine, but I’m having trouble getting access to the correct Novell drive. Can you check to see if the IP cable is connected to the right jack?”

Clarke and Bellamy looked at each other blankly as Raven waved her hand at them.

“English?”

Raven glanced up at them briefly from where she was apparently just clicking around in the Control Panel.

“Behind the desk, there should be a cord — it’ll probably be blue or gray, although it could be orange — just tell me what jack it’s plugged into.”

Clarke sighed and ventured into the jungle of wires behind the desk. Nothing made sense and she was afraid.

“Uh . . . blue cord?”

“Yeah.” Raven sounded like she wasn’t really listening. “Maybe gray. Sometimes it’s orange.”

That was not even a little bit helpful.

“Oh. Whoa.” Clarke paused at Raven’s soft exclamation. Raven seemed like the kind of girl for whom ‘whoa’ was the equivalent of normal people’s ‘holy fucking shit everyone start running’.

“Did you find it?”

Clarke narrowed her eyes at Bellamy’s words and immediately crawled out from behind the desk.

“Find what exactly, Bellamy?”

Bellamy’s eyes were glued to the screen as Raven double-clicked something and Clarke could see the screen’s light on their faces change color in the dark room. She took a few steps forward so that she could see the computer screen and immediately gasped.

“They can’t have that!”

She was still gaping at the screen when Bellamy asked her, with a hint of smugness, “You think it’ll be good enough blackmail material?”

So larceny wasn’t his plan. Clarke gulped again and finally tore her eyes away from the front page of the report that her father had been arrested for having.

“Yeah, it’ll work.”


	6. This Probably Wasn't A Good Situation

To: [grounds@um.edu](mailto:grounds@um.edu)

Subject: We know about the report

We’ve discovered that you have a copy of a special financial report to the board of trustees. It is, as I’m sure you are aware, illegal for you to have a copy of this report. We’ve moved your copy of the report into a public network drive, so it is not only accessible to anyone who wanted to go looking for it, but also easily retrievable even should you attempt to delete it.

Meet us at 6:00 tonight in the basement of the Lincoln.

Regards,

 _Delinquents_ staff

***

 **Lexa (3:52 pm):** _What time would you like to meet for dinner? Where would you like to meet?_

Clarke sent off the email to the _Grounds_ and then checked her phone to see a message from Lexa, and she couldn’t keep a smile off her face. Thank God she had something scheduled for today that wouldn’t make her angry and stressed.

She started tapping out a reply but then frowned. She had to talk to her mom at 8, so they’d have to meet before then, because she didn’t know how long that would take, and she figured Lexa wouldn’t want to eat dinner that late. But she also had this horrible meeting with the _Grounds_ at 6. How long would that meeting take? If it was short enough, she could meet Lexa at 6:30 and have plenty of time to talk before she had to go emotionally compromise her mother, but she wasn’t sure that she could count on the meeting being that quick. If they tried to meet before the meeting, then they’d have to meet in the next — she checked her watch (4:04) — twenty or thirty minutes, and she still needed to go grocery shopping, pick up snacks for chess club, and . . . she internally groaned as she remembered the flash drive burning a hole in her pocket.

**(4:05 pm):** _Would 6:30 work? I was thinking of meeting at hey joes bc it’s the only cool place I know. Is that ok with u?_

Clarke took a significantly longer amount of time on her next text, but she knew she needed to send it.

**(4:10 pm):** _Where are you? We need to talk._

While she waited for Lexa or Wells to text her back, she went ahead and changed Wells’ name back from Benedict Arnold. She supposed it was a pretty petty thing to do in the first place. Her phone buzzed.

**(203) 432-2418 (4:12 pm):** _This is Bellamy. When are we meeting the grounds?_

Oh for shit’s sake.

**(4:13 pm):** _how did u get this number_

**(203) 432-2418 (4:13 pm):** _fbook. When’s the meeting?_

Typical. She supposed she couldn’t pretend it was a wrong number now. She also supposed that if this actually worked and the magazine got off the ground, she’d probably have to communicate with Bellamy in the future. It wasn’t a fun thought, but she at least went ahead and added his number as a contact.

**(4:15 pm):** _WE aren’t meeting. I’m meeting them._

**Bellamy (4:15 pm):** _Who died and made you leader?_

**(4:17 pm):** _Last time they saw you you were stealing their computer. Octavia almost punched one of them in the face. You got any other nominations?_

**Bellamy (4:18 pm):** _So what? Added intimidation._

God, what an idiot.

**(4:21 pm):** _The only way to fuck up blackmail is to piss the person off so much that they’d rather have the info get out than help you. If you want a magazine, stay away from the meeting._

She groaned and looked around while she waited for his response. To be honest, she wasn’t entirely sure that Bellamy even did want a magazine, given the way he sabotaged her last meeting. What did Bellamy want?

She blinked around the snug basement of the student commons, named after the inefficiently giant statue of Abraham Lincoln that was right in the middle of the staircase to get in to the building. The place was about as dead as the bio building, mostly because the coffee shop in the basement was closed on Sundays, which was a complete outrage. She liked the couches in here, although to be professional, she’d probably have to meet the _Grounds_ editor at one of the tables on the dais at the back of the space.

Actually — she checked the time again (4:24) — she needed to get snacks for chess club, and the grocery store was a bit of a walk, so she should probably leave now in order to get back in time for the meeting.

**Wells (4:25 pm):** _Library, what’s up?_

Oh crap.

**(4:25 pm):** _We need to talk. Can you meet me at the rock in ten minutes? Dress for a walk._

**Lexa (4:25 pm):** _That would be excellent. Are you referring to the record shop and bar on Highland?_

**(4:26 pm):** _Yep! That ok?_

Clarke threw her computer into her backpack and slipped Lexa’s coat back on, smiling at the way her thumb just poked out of the end of the sleeves.

**Lexa (4:26 pm):** _Of course! I am looking forward to it._

**Bellamy (4:26 pm):** _Fine, but you come meet me right after and tell me what happened._

Clarke couldn’t even be bothered to be annoyed at Bellamy. She tapped on her phone as she walked the familiar path from the commons to the giant boulder near one of the pedestrian-only exits from campus.

**(4:28 pm):** _I’ve got somewhere else to be right after, so if you meet me by the statue of Lincoln at 6:15 I’ll give you the rundown._

She could tell Bellamy what had happened while walking to Hey Joe’s to meet Lexa. It was only like a five-minute walk from campus to the bar, which should be more than enough time to fill Bellamy in and then tell him to get lost before Lexa showed up. Actually, Lexa would probably be like fifteen minutes early, so she should make it quick so that she could lose Bellamy before she got there.

**Wells (4:30 pm):** _I’m there._

**Bellamy (4:30 pm):** _Fine. Octavia and Raven say they’ll be there too._

Clarke stifled a groan. Hopefully Lexa would forgive her for being a little high-strung.

She emerged from where the asphalt pedestrian path went through a patch of trees, and she could see Wells waiting by the boulder. She was always reminded of how tall Wells was when he stood by the boulder, because even though the rock, which was emblazoned with a plaque honoring some random donors from like the 1920s, felt like it had to be at least twice as tall as Clarke, from a distance you could tell that Wells was only a foot or so shy of the tip of the boulder. Clarke still remembered climbing on that boulder with Wells when she was tiny, only seven or eight, with her parents watching worriedly from below. The boulder had seemed like a mountain and the university like a giant playground for her to explore.

Wells turned and spotted her. Oh dear, she’d completely forgotten to prepare herself properly for this conversation.

“Hey, Wells. I’ve got to pick up snacks for the chess club meeting, so would you mind walking with me?”

“Yeah, of course.”

They started walking while Clarke tried desperately to put her thoughts in order. It was even trickier because she also had a favor to ask Wells, but she didn’t want that to get mixed up with the ‘sorry that I was a dick to you for something you didn’t do but maybe next time try not lying?’ part of the conversation.

“So, uh, you said we needed to talk, but I have something I need to say first.”

Wells took a deep breath and Clarke only just now really looked at him and realized that he looked super nervous, like almost as nervous as she felt.

“No, Wells, I really need to get this off my chest first.”

“Clarke, seriously, I —”

“Wells, I know it wasn’t you who got my dad arrested.”

She thought that would shut him up, but it didn’t.

“Are you kidding me? Lexa promised not to tell you!”

“Lexa — wh — you told — Lexa knew about this??” When did he even talk to Lexa? Last night? Lexa knew the whole time?

“Wait, she didn’t tell you?” Wells looked a little confused, but Clarke was a LOT confused.

She tried to pick just one of the whirlwind of questions in her head to ask, but didn’t quite succeed.

“When did you talk to Lexa? Why did you tell her?” She didn’t add the ‘when you wouldn’t tell me’ but she assumed it would be implied.

“We talked just a little last night when you called me, and I didn’t tell her, she sort of . . . figured it out.”

Clarke frowned. Her first thought was to call bullshit, but it did sort of explain Lexa’s just-slightly-too-casual questions from last night, and she supposed Lexa seemed like the kind of person who might just be able to read people that easily. Especially Wells. Wells couldn’t lie for shit.

“Oh. What did she say?”

Wells took a deep breath and turned to look at her while they were walking. “She told me I was an idiot and a coward for not telling you. She told me that it wasn’t my right to keep something important like that from you, even if I thought it was for your own good.”

“Well, she was right.”

“Yeah,” he turned his head back to the path. “She was.”

Clarke sighed. “Look, Wells, I hated you because I didn’t get it. I thought I’d lost my dad and my best friend and I didn’t even have a clue why you would’ve done something like that to me. But now I get it, and even though it was stupid and kind of shitty of you to lie to me, it’s . . .” she gulped away the lump in her throat. “It’s something my best friend would do. And I . . . I really need my best friend, Wells.”

He hugged her hard and it was exactly what she needed right now, and she cried into his shoulder, but it was a happy crying. Or not exactly happy, so much as the feeling like throwing up after a long night of tossing and turning with an upset stomach. It wasn’t fun, but she was going to feel so much better when she was done.

Wells squeezed her tight. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I never wanted any of this to happen to you and your family.”

“I know, I know.” Clarke let her last tears out. “Thank you, Wells.”

“I don’t think I really deserve thanks. If there’s anything I can do to earn your trust, though, I’ll be here and I hope you’ll let me help.”

“Wells, don’t be stupid, you’re already forgiven,” Clarke muttered into his shirt. This was sort of awkward, but it was her best lead-in. “And . . . if you’re alright with it, I want to prove that I still trust you.”

She pulled back a little to see his face, which was puppy-dog hopeful. “Yeah, of course, Clarke, anything.”

She bit her lip and pulled the flash drive out of her pocket. “We found this in the _Grounds_ office when we broke in the other day.” Wells frowned. “Bellamy never planned to steal anything — somehow he knew they were going to have this and he needed an excuse to get into the office without telling the rest of the club what he was really after. Do you know what’s on here?”

Wells shook his head, his disapproving face turned to complete confusion.

“The report.”

“No.”

“Yeah. The one my dad found. The _Grounds_ had it, and we made sure that we have enough evidence to use to make sure that they partner with us. We also took a copy of the report. It’s all on here, Wells, and I want you to take it.”

“What?!”

She stepped out of Wells’ arms and held out the flash drive.

“I need you to hold on to it for me and make sure no one finds out you have it.”

His hands were shaking as he reached out for it.

“You’re giving me . . . a copy of the report?”

“Please, Wells. I need someone I trust to look after it.”

Wells gulped and she could see the tears in his eyes. “Yeah. Of course.” He took the drive carefully. “Thank you, Clarke.”

“Wells.” Her eyes were still a little misty. “I missed you.”

“You too, princess.”

***

Clarke took a deep breath to try and steady her nerves. It didn’t work. She refreshed her email, went over the details again, and sipped her coffee. 5:58. All she had to do was politely threaten the editor in chief until they agreed to the original deal. It occurred to her that she’d never actually figured out who the editor in chief was, and she was about to look them up on the college’s website and maybe facebook stalk them a little bit, when Anya walked into the basement and made eye contact with her.

Clarke glared at her as she approached.

“Could the editor in chief not make it? Again?”

“Yes. And since you and I were already . . . acquainted, we thought it would be better for me to meet with you. Unless that’s a problem?”

Clarke continued to glare. On the one hand, that would give the editor more time to think of a way to outmaneuver them. On the other hand, she sort of liked Anya, so she couldn’t stop the second of relief she felt about not having to face the mysterious editor. She supposed she couldn’t say no at this point anyway.

“I’ll allow it.”

Anya huffed, but sat. “So, what are your demands? I assume you have demands.”

“Our demands are: you give us 4,000 dollars to print our magazine. We design, create, and operate your website and social media to your specifications. You don’t attempt to undermine our magazine, and we don’t inform the administration about your illegal possession of the college’s financial documents.”

Anya showed no reaction other than a slight eyebrow raise. “And why shouldn’t I just allow you to email the administration? It might be a little sticky, but nothing we couldn’t handle.”

Clarke couldn’t decide if she was pissed or amused at Anya’s bluff. “I’m going to let you in on a little secret: my father went to prison for possessing undisclosed financial information. This financial information. You’re students, of course, so you might avoid jail time and get away with only expulsion, a few thousand dollars in fines, and a legal agreement never to talk about anything related to the finances of the university ever again. So sure, nothing you couldn’t handle.”

Clarke caught Anya’s gulp, but only because she was looking for it. Got her.

“Very well.” Anya’s face was impassive, but Clarke was starting to get the hang of reading her, and she had Anya right where she wanted her. “I will have to talk with my editor in chief, of course.”

Of course she did. “I understand. Just to be clear, though,” Clarke leaned forward and shifted from politely threatening to normal threatening. “You have until 9:30 tomorrow, or I send the email to the Vice President of Student Life. If anyone enters the _Grounds_ office before I hear back from you, I send the email. If anyone tries to interfere with my computer or the computer of anyone else on the _Delinquents_ staff, I send the email.”

Anya leaned back in her chair. “I will let the editor know.”

“Good.”

Clarke crossed her arms and watched Anya write down Clarke’s instructions on a legal pad. She didn’t let herself check the time until Anya left the room. 6:10. She still had plenty of time to fill in Bellamy _et_ _al_. and meet Lexa without being too late.

She threw her laptop and notes in her bag and power-walked out of the basement, taking the stairs two at a time, excited to see Lexa and hear her softly explain her outrageously complicated thesis. The best part was that it would probably somehow seem reasonable after Lexa had explained it.

She burst out the doors, noting with irritation that she’d just missed the sunset, and spotted Bellamy, Raven, and Octavia before they saw her. They were lounging on the base of the statue affectionately known on campus as Abe, apparently just chatting. Clarke paused, because right then, with no one watching, they looked like they could be friends. Octavia laughed at something Raven said, and Bellamy looked over at his little sister with a light in his brown eyes that Clarke had never seen before, explaining to Clarke in one second what Bellamy was looking for.

He was still an asshole, though.

Octavia caught sight of Clarke and jumped up with the other two following her. They were in the tense, professional mode that Clarke had been used to seeing them in and Clarke contained a sigh, missing the feeling of having friends with a fierce ache.

“Well?”

Clarke ignored Bellamy and kept walking. “I’ve got another place to get to in ten minutes, so you’re going to need to walk and listen.”

Surprisingly, they fell in step with her. “So what did the editor in chief say?”

“Did they say yes?”

Bellamy and Octavia were staring at her, talking over each other in their impatience, and even Raven looked unabashedly interested, despite not clearly having a stake in the outcome. Clarke felt almost appreciated.

“The editor in chief wasn’t there, it was Anya, the one we met last —”

“The editor wasn’t there? What a dick!” Clarke concealed her irritation at Bellamy interrupting her, since it was exactly what she’d thought.

“Yeah, well, I delivered the threat, and Anya is clearly the second-in-command over there, so they got the message.”

“Now they’ve got time to plan a response, why’d you let her get away with that!”

Clarke also went ahead and let Octavia’s dumbass question roll off her, especially since she could catch the quirk of Bellamy’s lips that meant he knew it was a dumb question too.

“I gave them until 9:30 tomorrow and told them I’d send the email if I see anyone in the _Grounds_ office or trying to mess with us, so it’s not like they have weeks to prepare. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to make them answer us in five minutes without even knowing what our terms were going to be beforehand.”

“Not fair?! Who gives a shit about —”

“Octavia, chill.” Bellamy placed a hand on Octavia’s shoulder, and although her nostrils didn’t stop flaring, she did stop ranting. “You still have the flash drive, right?”

“Yeah, I mean,” Clarke checked over her shoulder to make sure the people behind them couldn’t hear. “It’s —” she made eye contact with the angry woman Octavia had attacked in the _Grounds_ office, who was walking right behind them, with a burly, bald, six-foot-tall accomplice. “Uh —” This probably wasn’t a good situation.

“She’s got the flash drive, grab it!” The dark-skinned woman yelled at somewhere over Clarke’s shoulder and she turned to see the only other person on the sleepy street turn around. Clarke froze as the athletic woman who’d been innocently walking in front of them came straight at her, and over her shoulder she could see another athletic woman turn the corner from the main street that this one connected to. There was no one else around.

Raven punched the woman who was charging Clarke in the stomach with vicious accuracy and no warning, and Clarke’s brain caught up with her body just in time to explain all of the different horrible things that were likely about to happen.

“What the fuck?!” Bellamy turned around, and Clarke could hear the hiss of breath from the woman from the _Grounds_ office.

“You.” Clarke turned in time to see the woman’s fist connect with the side of Bellamy’s face, barely two feet from Clarke. Bellamy didn’t have time to bring his fists up before Octavia tackled the woman from the side, clumsily, but with enough effort to slam both of them into the asphalt. Clarke didn’t have time to follow the fight further, because an arm from behind grabbed her and shoved her so hard that she hit the ground without enough time to break her fall, landing on her face and broken arm.

She screamed at the pain and curled up in a ball, waiting to be hit repeatedly. No blows landed, but someone yanked at her backpack hard enough to slam her broken arm into the pavement again and Clarke was now crying from the pain. No further yanks were forthcoming, so apparently someone gave enough of a shit about her to stop the athletic newspaper people from rebreaking her arm. Or, more likely, Octavia was just punching everyone in sight.

Clarke stayed curled up on the ground, surrounded by the uncomfortably muted sounds of a fistfight — just grunts, dull thuds, and rubbing sounds of people rolling on the ground. With the arm that wasn’t sheer agony, she dug her phone out of her pocket and dialled 911 blindly.

“Emergency services, how can I help you?”

“There’s a fight, on Chimes St., just outside the university,” Clarke gasped.

“Are you safe?”

“No! Please hurry!”

“Police officers are on their way, they should be there in two minutes. Can you stay on the phone?”

“If I don’t get —” someone fell on Clarke, their elbow landing on her ribs, driving their combined weight down on to Clarke’s broken arm, and she screamed again.

“Miss, are you there?! Miss!” Clarke could still register the sound of the person on the other end of the line. The person who fell on her jumped up again, apparently not that badly injured, and Clarke attempted to bring her breathing back to at least basic functionality.

Even with her lungs tight from the pain, she choked out a response. “Yeah, still here.”

“How many other people are there?”

“Six, maybe seven, counting my friends. They attacked us.”

“Is anyone armed?”

“No. I don’t – I don’t think so.”

“The police are very close. Stay still and don’t worry. I’ll stay on the line with you.”

There was a scream that could’ve come from Raven or one of the newspaper women, and then the fighting was right on top of Clarke. She could feel hands pulling on her backpack, being interrupted, and another set of hands grab for her phone, which she held onto, looking up at the dark-skinned woman trying to take it from her, who staggered back as Bellamy punched her in the side of the face. Her backpack was yanked again, pulling a strangled gasp from her, and Bellamy shoved the person away from her, but then was tackled out of Clarke’s field of vision by the dark-skinned woman. The face of the athletic woman who’d first charged them appeared over Clarke, reaching for the strap of Clarke’s backpack.

“Just give us the backpack and we’ll leave,” the woman hissed.

“It’s not even in the backpack, you idiot!” Clarke spat through teary eyes. “I don’t have it!”

“Bullshit.” The woman viciously yanked her backpack, ripping the strap off of her good shoulder and bending her broken arm. Clarke was no longer coherent, crying loudly, heaving gasps of pain that made the woman above her pause for a second.

“POLICE!! EVERYONE GET DOWN ON THE GROUND **NOW**!!”

The woman disappeared, and as soon as she exited Clarke’s sight, she vanished from Clarke’s pain-soaked mind. She slowed her sobs and lifted her head up gingerly to see the situation. Bellamy and Octavia were still standing; they had a few scrapes and she was pretty sure Bellamy was going to have an impressive black eye, but they both looked okay. Two police officers were approaching, a spotlight from their car focused on the center of the street, even though it really wasn’t dark enough for it to be necessary.

Bellamy went to kneel over someone. When Clarke sat up, hissing in pain, she saw he was touching Raven’s shoulder as the girl lay on the ground, her face screwed up in pain, an angry frown on her face, her leg held out in front of her. Clarke couldn’t see what was wrong, but judging from Raven’s face, it was something.

“Are any of you hurt?”

“Yes, she needs medical attention!” It was Bellamy, talking about Raven, which didn’t seem like the Bellamy Clarke knew, but she was definitely seeing a new side of him today.

“I’m fine.” Raven was not fine, and everyone knew it as soon as she said it, but no one had the heart to call her on it.

“Does anyone else need medical attention?” The officers, both clean-looking men in their 30s or 40s, looked at Clarke.

“I’m — I don’t think so. I’d like to go get some painkillers from my house, though.”

“The paramedics are on the way.”

“No,” Clarke gritted her teeth. Her arm was still killing her. “I have prescription medication for my _broken arm_ that is at my house and I need to take some right now. It’s barely two miles away, and I’ll write my statement on the way.”

The police officers looked at each other for a second, then at Bellamy and Octavia, both standing unsteadily on their feet. The older officer sighed and clicked a radio on his shoulder.

“This is Kane and Jackson. We’ve found the kids. One of them needs a stretcher. Another one needs some medication from her house. Jackson’s going to bring her, I’ll stay until backup and ambulances get here.”

There was a click from the radio and staticky muttering that Clarke couldn’t make out. The younger officer clicked his radio.

“Shouldn’t need it, but I’ll check in.” He waved his fingers at Clarke. “Alright kid, come on. You need help?”

Clarke gritted her teeth and stood up, refusing to make any noises of pain through sheer force of stubbornness. She really hoped she hadn’t made her fracture any worse. To be honest, she probably had.

“I’ll be fine.”

The police officers looked at each other and shook their heads.

“Whatever, kid.”

Clarke limped into the back of the police car and leaned back. Everything hurt.

“Here’s the sheet you need. Write your name here, your phone number here, your description of what happened here, sign here . . .” he paused. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

She sighed. “I’ll tell you later.”

The policeman gave her a sympathetic look. “Sorry, kid. What’s your address?”

She told him and he started the car and drove silently, which was what she wanted right now. She stared at the report sheet. What the hell was she supposed to write on this?

She went with just writing what happened blow-by-blow, completely omitting any lead-up for how they knew the newspaper people or where they were going. Wait, shit, Lexa!

She pulled out her phone.

**Lexa (6:25 pm):** _I very much like the atmosphere of this place._

**Lexa (6:32 pm):** _Just to check, Hey Joe’s on Highland is where we’re supposed to meet, correct?_

**Lexa (6:40 pm):** _I understand you’re probably busy with school. I’ll wait here for fifteen more minutes in case you’re running late._

Shit. She started painfully typing out an apology, but her hand was shaking too much from pain. She thumped her head back on the seat of the police car, wishing Lexa were right here next to her. Would it be awkward to call her right now from the back of a police car? Yes. Did Clarke care? No.

“I take it you were unavoidably detained?” It sounded like Lexa’s normal voice, but Clarke could hear the sarcasm, and not the funny kind. Clarke felt like shit about standing her up, but also not in the mood for this.

“Well, given that I’m currently sitting in the back of a police car after being violently attacked, yes, you could say that!” She tried to tone down her own sarcasm.

“What? Where are you?” Clarke had never heard Lexa sound like she did right then.

“Hey, no, I’m fine. I landed on my arm, so that hurts really bad, and I have to go fill out a statement or whatever, but I’m okay.”

“Who attacked you? Where are they now? Are they in custody?”

“No, they ran off . . .” she could hear a door opening in the background through the phone. “Lexa?”

“Do you need any help? Which police station are you heading towards? Do you have anything to defend yourself with?”

“Lexa! Chill.” There was a second of just breathing into the phone. “I don’t need any help, I think I’ll just need to fill out some paperwork.” She paused, and even though Lexa didn’t jump in with questions, Clarke could hear her impatience. “If you’re still around tonight, though, I’d love to see you at some point.”

Lexa was still quiet, and although Clarke wasn’t sure why, Lexa’s silence calmed Clarke. Her arm even felt like it hurt less.

“Would you like a ride from the police station?”

Clarke smiled. “Yeah.” Clarke listened to Lexa’s silence for another few seconds. “I’ll text you the address when they let me out.”

“Okay.” Lexa’s voice was deep, Clarke hadn’t realized how deep until just now. “I will see you soon.”

“Yeah. See ya.”

She didn’t take the phone away from her ear for a long second. That didn’t suck.

“This is your street, right?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. My house is on the right over there.”

“Alright. Let me know if your roommate has any questions.”

“I don’t have a roommate,” Clarke said absently as she zipped Lexa’s coat up.

“Then who’s in your house?”

Clarke looked up in confusion. Her door was open.

“No one else has a key to my house.”

“Hm.” The young officer got out of the car and she could see him talking into the radio on his shoulder before opening Clarke’s door. “Okay, I’ll come in with you, and there’s another car nearby if there’s any problems.”

Clarke gulped and tagged behind the police officer. Why had her life reached the point where she had to be afraid walking into her own house?

She gaped at her living room. Her homemade bookshelf had been destroyed, her books were on top of her bare couch, the cushions of which were no longer on the couch where she’d left them, but rather dangling from her ceiling fan. She was in a lot of pain, but she was still reasonably certain that cushions didn’t end up on ceiling fans by chance.

The police officer pulled out a taser from his side pocket. Clarke hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, but she couldn’t deny that she felt a little bit safer as he walked ahead of her into the house.

She walked into the room that she pretentiously called her study because it was where she did her homework to see the police officer and Anya looking at each other in mutual confusion.

“Do you know this woman?”

“Uh . . . yes.”

The police officer started to lower his taser, at which point Anya bolted. The police officer looked at Clarke in confusion.

“She’s out to get me! She broke into my house!”

The police office didn’t look any less confused, but he raised the taser again and started walking after Anya.

“Come out with your hands up.” He paused, looking at the two doors on the other side of her study.

“She ran into the bathroom. I don’t have a back door, so she can’t get out.”

The cop sighed and clicked his radio, which was frankly starting to annoy Clarke. “This is Jackson. There’s an intruder in the house. I need backup.”

The door to the bathroom opened slowly, and Jackson pointed his taser at Anya as she emerged slowly, her hands up.

“This is a misunderstanding.”

Clarke had had enough.

“The fuck it is!! You broke into my house, smashed my bookshelf, threw cushions into my fan — and I made that bookshelf myself —” she stopped herself. This was not helping her case, and Anya didn’t look nearly as worried as normal people did when they were being arrested. “You broke into my house.”

Anya shrugged. “You took pictures of my teammates naked and threatened us with them.”

Huh? “Huh?”

“You want to bring me in, fine, but bring your laptop, so the police can search it for the pictures you blackmailed me with.”

Oh. Anya thought she had the file on her computer and would balk at giving the police access to it. Sorry, bitch. “Okay, I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, so sure, take my computer.”

The poor police officer looked completely overwhelmed. “Young lady, you’re going to need to come back to the station with me. There will be plenty of time to make a statement from there.”

Clarke followed the officer and Anya out of her house, barely remembering to grab her painkillers on the way out. She didn’t want to celebrate too early, but she was pretty sure she’d just clinched a final victory over the newspaper, completely by accident. The young officer let her sit in the front seat after he put Anya in the backseat, none too gently.

She pulled her phone out and tried to figure out who she should text in what order.

**(6:55 pm):** _Tell Octavia and Raven that we’re definitely going to get our money from the paper._

**(6:56 pm):** _Don’t go home. Stay somewhere public._

**Bellamy (6:56 pm):** _How do you figure??_

**Bellamy (6:56 pm):** _Raven’s real hurt_

**Wells (6:56 pm):** _What??_

**(6:58 pm):** _Managing editor broke into my house. Police caught her_

**(6:58 pm):** _Just trust me Wells_

**Bellamy (7:00 pm):** _That’s a good thing how?_

Bellamy tried so hard to be a conniving little shit, but it clearly didn’t come naturally to him. She looked up as they pulled into the police station parking lot.

**(7:00 pm):** _I’ll explain later_

The police officer walked them in to the busy main room, filled with desks and people milling around, a few in uniforms, but mostly not. He sat Anya down in a chair next to what Clarke supposed must be his desk, sat down himself, and then gestured for Clarke to pull up a chair.

“Okay, so do you want to tell me what happened here?”

“I told you, she took photos of myself and my teammates and was trying to blackmail us for money, so I broke into her house to try and delete the pictures from her computer.”

“You mean this computer?” Clarke slammed the laptop she’d carried from home down on the table. “You want to look on it? There’s nothing on there. I don’t know any of your teammates.” She opened the laptop, clicked on File Explorer and turned it to face Anya and the police officer. “Go for it.”

Anya looked unnerved and the police officer sighed. “Look, for right now, I just need you both to write an official statement with what happened, and we’ll decide what the most appropriate legal actions are afterwards. I should remind you both, however, that lying on a statement is considered a misdemeanor.” He turned to Clarke. “I also need to ask you if you intend to press charges.”

Clarke carefully kept her smile off her face. “Um, well, I’m really not sure, sir.” A carefully calculated pause. “Do you think — would it be alright if I talked to Anya alone?”

The police officer’s face softened, and Clarke caught the tiniest rise and fall of Anya’s throat as the woman gulped. This was too easy.

“Of course. I’ll be at the front desk when you’re ready with your statements.”

He walked off and Clarke turned to Anya, waiting until she was sure the officer wasn’t watching before letting out just a hint of the victorious smile she’d been hiding for the last ten minutes.

“Call your editor right now.”

“I beg your pardon?” Anya raised her eyebrows.

“Call your editor right now, because the only way you walk out of here without needing to call your lawyer and the university to explain the breaking and entering charges is if I talk to your editor in person in the next fifteen minutes.”

Anya raised her head. “You think I will allow you to use me as a bargaining chip? I would rather go to prison.”

It was Clarke’s turn to raise her eyebrows. She had to admit, she hadn’t expected Anya to be quite so suicidally loyal to a college newspaper, but then again, the woman had been breaking into her house just to avoid splitting any of their budget with an art magazine, so who knew what the woman was capable of.

“You are the managing editor of your newspaper, right? It’d be pretty hard to run a paper without a managing editor, or train a new one in the middle of the year. Maybe you should let the editor in chief make the call on whether or not it’s worth it to let yourself get expelled.”

Anya fixed her with a level look that Clarke met. They’d been here before, and Clarke knew who would win this one. Sure enough, Anya finally looked away and pulled her phone out.

“Editor?” Pause. “There’s been . . . a situation.” Pause. “Yes, with regards to the art magazine. You’re needed at the police station on 5th.” Long pause, and then Anya closed her phone. “I hope you’re happy.”

Clarke just stared at her. “Happy?? This entire time all I have wanted was to make a deal with your paper, so that my friends and I could have an art magazine, because the administration won’t let us have the funds. I asked politely, I made sure it was a fair deal that would help everyone, but you turned me down!”

“And you repaid the favor by attacking my staff members, breaking into our offices, and blackmailing us.” Okay, she had a point there.

“Into accepting the perfectly reasonable offer that’s been on the table the entire time!”

“You mean the offer to allow a group full of irresponsible children with no impulse control to be in charge of our entire public image?”

“How about the offer to let a group that specializes in graphic design and media do a job that no one on your staff is even attempting, let alone qualified, to do?” She held off the ‘bitch’, but suspected that it was implied.

“We owe you nothing,” Anya hissed, before breaking eye contact and turning with finality to the statement sheet still in front of her.

Clarke sighed and was about to turn back to her own statement when she saw Lexa by the front desk.

“Hey! Lexa! Over here!” She stood up as Lexa approached, watching Lexa look from her to Anya with confusion. “I’m not done yet, but thanks for coming.”

As warm as it made her feel that Lexa would come down to the police station to see her, something about Lexa’s furrowed brow and repeated looks at Anya made her uneasy.

“I’m glad to see you are well, Clarke, although I have other business here. Anya, would you mind explaining what’s going on?”

Clarke was taken aback and looked over at Anya, who looked as confused as Clarke felt.

“I don’t understand why you never mentioned that you knew her, boss. That would have been important information.”

“What?” Lexa was as in the dark as the rest of them, apparently.

The three woman blinked at each other for a second, until Clarke realized. Boss. Editor. Oh shit.

“You’re the editor in chief of the _Grounds_.” Lexa met her eyes and Clarke could see the same realization dawning in her dark eyes.

“You’re the art magazine leader.”


	7. She Had To Be Alexandria

Lexa had been waiting nervously outside of the police station ever since she’d gotten Clarke’s phone call, trying to take deep breaths and not just charge inside. A few police officers had given her funny looks as she’d paced furiously on the cracked concrete across the street from the main entrance.

Clarke had said she’d been attacked, but that she was okay, so there was no problem, right? Clarke had said she was fine right after being hit by a motorcycle going thirty miles an hour, though, so she couldn’t necessarily take Clarke at her word. What if Clarke was hurt and didn’t know it? What if Clarke was just standing her up in cruelly creative fashion? What if she went to drive Clarke home and Clarke was hurt and asked Lexa to help her inside and looked at her with those blue eyes and asked Lexa to maybe stay for a while and . . .

Why had Clarke so taken over her life that she started referring to herself as Lexa? Her name was Alexandria. Alexandria was a good name. It meant “defender of man” and it was the name of the city that had contained the stored wisdom of the entire ancient world, and Alexandria was very proud of those facts. ‘Lexa’ didn’t mean anything, as far as Alexandria knew, and just because it made her head fill with images of Clarke’s blue eyes and Clarke’s mouth and Clarke’s smile didn’t mean that she was just going to go around calling herself ‘Lexa’. Probably.

Anya still hadn’t called back and her phone was still going straight to voicemail and Le-ALEXANDRIA couldn’t help but remember that other time; running to police stations, a phone straight to voicemail, and finally being asked to identify the body. She stopped and took deep breaths, counting how many seconds she could breathe in for.

Her phone rang. Anya.

“Editor?”

“Report.” Alexandria’s hand was shaking and she had to consciously stabilize it.

“There’s been . . . a situation.” No shit.

“I am aware.”

“You’re needed at the police station on 5th.” Alexandria glanced up at the police station she was standing in front of.

“I’m right here already. You’re going to have a long and detailed explanation to give me.”

Alexandria hung up and ran across the street and up the stairs. Please god, don’t let Clarke be dead.

***

Oddly enough, for one second, Alexandria was pretty sure this was worse than either Clarke or Anya being dead.

“So you’re the one who broke into our office and threatened us.”

Of course Clarke wasn’t just hanging out with her for fun. Of course she wasn’t just volunteering to listen to Alexandria’s thesis for fun. It shouldn’t hurt Alexandria that some random stranger she’d hit with her motorcycle had been using her for information, but it did.

“So you’re the one who refused to let the art magazine exist, and then ordered your minions to physically attack me, even knowing I had a _broken arm_.”

Alexandria paused and looked at Anya in confusion. What? Someone from the newspaper had attacked Clarke?

“Perhaps I would be better able to clear up this situation if I knew as much as you did.”

“Why don’t you ask your managing editor why exactly she was breaking into my house while I was distracted by being badly beaten?”

Alexandria frowned. First of all, Anya was going to need to tell her what the hell was going on, and second of all she was going to need to talk to Anya later about putting her in the position of having no idea what was going on in an important negotiation.

“Anya, I believe you said that there was a situation. Would you care to explain?”

“I . . .” Alexandria raised her eyebrows at Anya’s hesitation. She’d probably never seen Anya looking embarrassed in her entire life. “I attempted to retrieve evidence that the art magazine had infiltrated our office and stolen the report, but while I was searching her house, this woman interrupted me. In the company of a police officer.”

Oh dear. “And the physical altercation?”

“Oh yes, do explain that one.” Alexandria couldn’t decide if she was impressed or deeply concerned by Clarke’s vicious tone.

“I assigned Indra to follow the art magazine leader and retrieve the evidence if at all possible. I do not know the details of the altercation, but it appears she may have interpreted my instructions somewhat liberally.”

Alexandria could hear the note of shame in Anya’s voice, which hurt almost as much as Clarke’s snarl once Anya had finished.

“Somewhat liberally?! Good to hear that stalking, breaking and entering, and theft are all perfectly acceptable, but punching someone with a broken arm is just a little bit out of your comfort zone!”

Anya looked around nervously at the crowded main room of the police station, but Clarke had never taken her eyes off of Alexandria, who couldn’t break eye contact if she tried.

“Clarke. I give you my word I did not order anyone to attack you or enter your house without permission.”

“And the reason that you decided not to tell me that you were the editor in chief was what exactly? So that I would believe you when you _gave me your word_?”

Clarke’s blond hair was floating around her head as she stood, wincing a little, and Alexandria immediately checked Clarke’s arm. It was tucked gingerly to Clarke’s chest, the unobtrusive cast dirty and ripped, but despite the fact that Clarke must be in pain, the only emotion on her face as she walked around the table to face Alexandria was rage.

“I didn’t know that you were the leader of the art magazine, Clarke. Given that my name is inside every single newspaper I’ve ever produced and yet you never made a connection between me and the _Grounds_ , it seems a little hypocritical for you to be angry at me, unless you can explain how I was supposed to deduce that you were the anonymous leader of an organization with whom I’d never had any direct contact.”

Clarke blinked and Alexandria watched her rage cool, but the spark didn’t leave her eyes. “Then I suppose I’m just having trouble with the idea that you’re asking me to take anything you say on faith while I’m standing in a police station because your managing editor was _breaking into my house_.” Instead of yelling, Clarke emphasized the last words with quiet force.

Part of Alexandria wanted to try and appease Clarke, tell her that she didn’t know about any of this, that she would never hurt Clarke, but right now she couldn’t be Lexa: she had to be Alexandria, editor in chief of the _Grounds_. So she straightened her back and hardened her lips.

“Then I will not ask you to take anything on faith. I take full responsibility for the actions of my organization — if you have any objections to those actions, take them up with me alone.”

Clarke raised her eyebrows coolly. “Oh, I intend to, _editor_.” Alexandria felt the slap of the word, but didn’t show it. “Since I can’t legally prove that your organization brutally beat me and my colleagues with the intent to steal our possessions, why don’t we start with the felonies I can prove, if that’s acceptable?”

Alexandria nodded minutely, not trusting herself to speak.

“Your managing editor broke into my house, ransacked my living room, and searched my computer, claiming to be looking for pictures that we all know no one will find. You can’t mention the file you were actually looking for and I can guarantee you that no one will find any trace of that copy in any of my possessions, so if I choose to press charges, then Anya here will be facing criminal charges, which will likely result in her expulsion. Do you have any objections?”

Clarke’s voice was bitter and cold. Alexandria wanted to cry as she watched the first person she’d considered calling a friend in years threaten the only person in the world she actually trusted with expulsion. She couldn’t cry, though.

“Petty revenge will not help your magazine receive funding, Clarke.” She kept her voice even and reasonable.

“Petty revenge? Is that what you think is happening here?” Clarke took a step forward, her face curled up in disgust, and Alexandria clenched her jaw with the effort it took not to show any emotion. “Let me get one thing straight, _Alexandria_ , because apparently you are misunderstanding me: I have no intention of getting revenge. I am threatening you.”

“In that case, it is customary to begin with your list of demands.”

Clarke smiled, and Alexandria was pretty sure her sarcastic smile was worse than her earlier look of disgust. “As if you don’t know what my demands are. Four thousand dollars. We design, operate, and maintain a professional website for you, along with as many social media sites as your cold, black hearts desire. Just for the fun of it, I’ll add in the demand that you refrain from _putting any of us in the hospital_ , since apparently that’s a little difficult for you!”

The snarl was back in her tone.

“You have my managing editor sitting in handcuffs and a file that could easily send me to jail, and you still offer to make our website for us? Why not just demand the money?” Alexandria wasn’t sure what the catch was.

Clarke just gaped at her as if the idea hadn’t occurred to her, and Alexandria tried to figure out what angle Clarke was trying to play here. As her disbelieving look stretched on, the penny finally dropped for Alexandria: it actually hadn’t occurred to Clarke.

“I’m sorry, apparently there’s something else that I need to clarify here: I’M NOT A SOCIOPATH.” The last four words were loud enough that a police officer approached their table.

“Excuse me, ma’am, is there a problem here?”

“I’m sorry, officer Kane.” Clarke closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “They’re just explaining what happened tonight, and I was a little surprised.”

The police officer looked skeptical. “Because if you would feel safer, we can move her into questioning . . .”

Alexandria caught Anya’s affronted look and almost smiled, although the sinking feeling in her stomach didn’t allow it.

“No, thank you, officer,” Clarke smiled gratefully and Alexandria was unnerved at how easily the girl could switch her tone. “I’m perfectly safe. It’s just been a long night and my nerves are a little frayed. We’re almost done, but I think it’ll be easier for us to talk alone.”

“Okay . . .” the officer stepped back, still obviously keeping an eye on them.

Clarke turned back to Alexandria, still less than a foot away, with a pleasant smile. “As I was saying, it may be standard operating procedure for your organization to illegally extort money from other people, but normal human beings tend to find that sort of thing distasteful.” The last word was bit out from between gritted teeth, but then Clarke sighed and her pose softened. “Look, Lexa, I’ve only ever wanted one thing, and it’s for my friends to have an art magazine. It’s the only shot at a legitimate career for some of them. I really respect your newspaper; I proposed a deal with you in the first place because I thought we could help each other. I’m really sorry we had to end up here, but in our defense, all we’ve gotten in return for our reasonable offer is silent rejection and outright hostility.”

“Is that intended to make me guilty? Because we are within our rights to —”

“Guilty??” Clarke hissed and the rest of Alexandria’s sentence was swallowed. “If I wanted to make you feel guilty, I would bring you to the hospital room where one of my friends is sitting with a broken leg because of _your_ staff.” Her voice was barely above a whisper as she advanced another step into Alexandria’s personal space, and this time Alexandria couldn’t stop herself from backing away, unable to face the bruises on Clarke’s face and the pain in her eyes. “I would press charges against your second-in-command and let you live with knowing that she was expelled for you.” Clarke took another step and Alexandria stumbled backward again, but Clarke kept coming until Alexandria stumbled into a desk, putting her hand behind her to stop herself from completely falling over. “If I wanted you to feel guilty, I would describe what it felt like to realize that someone was breaking into my house, and wonder if I would survive or if I would end up like —”

Clarke cut herself off, head tilting slightly as if she just remembered there were other people around, and Alexandria heard the word she didn’t say. Costia. Alexandria gulped, fighting to keep her eyes dry and her breathing steady. What would Costia say to her now? Would Costia look at her like Clarke was, like an enemy? Would Costia be as disappointed by what had happened in Alexandria’s name as she was? Alexandria couldn’t look away from Clarke’s blue eyes, knowing that her impassive face didn’t stop Clarke from knowing exactly the effect her words had.

Clarke sighed and looked down, releasing Alexandria from her gaze. “Lexa,” Alexandria didn’t want to let that one word soothe her, but it did. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that, that was —”

“Okay.”

“Uh, what?”

“Okay, I’m willing to accept your offer.” Alexandria knew it was the only option she had as editor, and she went ahead and pretended that the flash of hope she saw on Clarke’s tired face had nothing to do with it.

“Editor, do not do this on my account. This is my fault, and the newspaper should not suffer for me.”

Clarke whirled around to Anya. “Oh, would both of you stop pretending that you’re in any way thinking about going to jail over this?”

“Anya is correct.” Clarke turned slowly and with an expression of exaggerated longsuffering. “I will not allow my personal feelings for any one person to override the good of the newspaper.”

“Oh, for the love of — are you people crazy? This isn’t the survival of humanity we’re talking about, it’s just a college newspaper! Throwing your life away for a college newspaper isn’t admirable, it isn’t the rational thing to do, it’s stupid and short-sighted and —”

Alexandria held up a hand to cut her off. “Regardless, the best choice for our newspaper is to accept your offer. I do have a condition, however.”

“A condition?” Clarke’s eyebrows were raised regally.

“I must see and approve of the website design and the posting of the first articles before we pay you.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes. Alexandria didn’t think she’d be able to get away with the blatant attempt to buy time, but she might as well try.

“Very well, although I have a condition of my own. You email the Vice President of Student Life with the terms of our deal right now, with both of our names on it.”

Alexandria inclined her head. “Fair enough.”

Clarke turned, and Alexandria could breathe properly while Clarke pulled her computer out of her backpack, opened it up on the table and held it out to Alexandria.

“Alright, Lexa, if you want Anya to walk out of here, we do this now.”

***

To: Shirley Wallace, Vice President of Student Life ([swallace@um.edu](mailto:swallace@um.edu))

Subject: Proposed Partnership

Hello,

The leadership of the _Grounds_ and the leadership of the proposed art magazine have been in talks over the last few days, and although there were several issues, as you were aware of from our last email, we have recently reached an agreement.

We intend, pending your approval, to move 4,000 dollars of our budget into several funds allocated to paying for the costs associated with the creative design of an official website for the _Grounds_. The funds will also cover operation and maintenance costs for whatever hardware or software is required, and salary fees for the employees hired to upload content to the website and monitor and maintain the hardware necessary for the continuous running of the website.

That fund will be in the care of the new art magazine, tentatively named the _Delinquents_ , who will also be allowed to use the fund to pay for the costs associated with printing their magazine. They will only be allowed to use the funds for this purpose on the condition that they continue to operate the _Grounds_ website to our satisfaction. Any disagreements between the two organizations will be mediated by you or your office, if that is a role you are willing to fill.

This is an official, binding agreement between our two organizations. The final details will be decided upon by our organizations and submitted to you within a week for approval.

Signed,

Alexandria Forrester, editor in chief of the _Grounds_

Clarke Griffin, editor in chief of the _Delinquents_


	8. She Wouldn't Be Walking Away

Alexandria stepped out of the police station to look for the Cutlass and checked her phone.

**Indra Wood (7:47 pm):** _I am afraid I will miss practice tomorrow. I was involved in an altercation with the art magazine staff and I’m a little banged up._

Alexandria clenched her teeth, already attempting to put together the perfect string of words to explain precisely how degenerate and disappointing she found Indra’s actions to be.

“Hey, mom!”

Alexandria blinked up from her phone to see Clarke standing across the street, holding her phone in her hand and looking down at it. It took Alexandria a second to understand what was going on, until she realized that Clarke had the phone on speaker or a video call or something and was talking into it.

“Well, I’m standing in front of a police station, where I had to fill out a statement because I was attacked by three or four people, which sucked because I broke my arm Friday night in a motorcycle accident. Technically, the statement was because someone had broken into my house and tossed the place, although they couldn’t find what they were looking for because I’d given what they were looking for to Wells. Oh, and what they were looking for was a special financial report from the university, you know, the one Dad got arrested for? I trusted Wells to keep it safe, because I just realized yesterday that he didn’t turn Dad in to the university. And then I thought to myself, hm, who else could possibly have gotten Dad arrested? Do you have any ideas, Mom, anyone else who knew that Dad had the report and didn’t approve of him making it public?”

Alexandria was frozen in place just a few steps from the main door of the police station, on the other side of the silent street from Clarke, her brain refusing to offer a single reasonable course of action. She couldn’t stay and listen, she couldn’t walk over there, and she sure as hell couldn’t walk away from Clarke right now.

“Oh wait! It was you! My own mother! I especially liked the part where you went off on a space mission and let me think that my best friend had betrayed me!”

Oh no oh no oh no oh no . . .

“No, mom! I don’t — I can’t do this right now! I just, I really need someone on my side right now, I need someone to help me. I’m scared, and everyone I know hates me, and Dad’s gone, and Wells was gone, and you’re —” Clarke pulled in a shaky breath.

Lexa took a deep breath. She was still Alexandria Forrester, editor in chief of the _Grounds_ and technically responsible for Clarke’s pain, but maybe she could also be Lexa, Clarke’s friend. She certainly hoped so, because she’d already decided she wouldn’t be walking away, so at this point it was just a matter of how long she’d be frozen here listening to Clarke’s personal conversation without permission until she mustered up the courage to walk across the street. If there was one thing she could be for Clarke, it was brave.

“No! Don’t you get it, I don’t care! I don’t care why you did it, I don’t care why you didn’t tell me, I don’t care why you left on a mission, I don’t care!! After dad went to jail, I needed someone to talk to, and I had NOBODY. I just want . . .” Lexa could see Clarke’s tears falling freely now, glinting from the shifting patterns of light as Lexa approached. “I just want someone to talk to that I know will be in my corner, and I don’t even have my mom.”

“Sweetheart —” Lexa could hear Clarke’s mom through the phone for the first time.

“Have fun with your mission. Don’t call me again.”

Clarke hung up, and turned away from Lexa, presumably to start stumbling her way home. God, was Clarke just allergic to the idea of asking other people for rides?

“Clarke?” Clarke froze and Lexa braced herself. Honestly, it was entirely possible that Clarke was just going to punch her in the face right now.

“What do you want, Lexa?” Okay, could be better, could be worse.

“I was wondering if you still wanted a ride home?”

Lexa’s voice was soft and tentative as Clarke turned. Gone was the charismatic, roguishly bruised leader who had backed Lexa into a corner, metaphorically and literally. Clarke just looked tired and in pain.

“Why?”

Lexa looked down at the ground. “I know it is a long walk from here to your house. It should be . . . safe,” Lexa swallowed down everything else that threatened to come with that word, “but I’d rather not leave you to walk.”

Clarke blinked at her. The silence stretched on, crickets from the small cemetery across from the police station providing a soothing background noise.

Lexa took another slow, shy step closer. “Please, Clarke?”

Clarke sighed and her body slumped. “Sure, why not? If you’re going to kill me and leave my body in a dumpster, well, at least I’ll finally get some sleep.”

Lexa winced. She’d probably earned the jibe, but the tired resignation in Clarke’s voice was what really hurt.

“I will not hurt you, Clarke.”

“Really? Not even if it would help out your newspaper?”

Lexa blinked. She felt like the answer should be obvious, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember which answer was the obvious one.

Clarke took a step closer, now within a normal conversational distance. “I’m sorry, you didn’t deserve that.”

“Didn’t I?” Lexa murmured, unable to look Clarke in the eyes, instead staring at Clarke’s feet and willing herself not to think about the rip in Clarke’s jeans.

Clarke shifted on her feet and didn’t answer. A few long seconds passed before Lexa realized that Clarke wasn’t going to answer and that the silence was starting to get awkward.

“So . . . where’s your car?” Clarke asked when Lexa finally met her eyes. Lexa nodded her head towards the side street where she’d parked and Clarke offered her a small smile before following.

It was probably a bad idea, but between the smile and Clarke walking at her side, her breath blowing puffs of condensation into Lexa’s field of vision, Lexa couldn’t help but hope. Maybe there was a chance. Maybe Clarke didn’t hate her. Clarke was still wearing Lexa’s jacket, that had to be a good sign, right?

Lexa had to consciously slow her pace to match Clarke’s limp. She wondered if Clarke found the silence awkward — Lexa was too content just being next to Clarke to risk breaking the silence and ruining it.

Clarke still had her phone out and resumed tapping on it as she got into the front seat of the Cutlass. Lexa stole a look at her while she was starting the car, and judging by Clarke’s face, the messages she was sending weren’t the fun light-hearted type.

The silence continued as they started rumbling through the streets and now Lexa started trying to think of something to say. She would apologize, but she didn’t think she had anything to apologize for. She was upset that someone from her newspaper would try to attack Clarke, but strictly speaking, Clarke had robbed and blackmailed them. Even without taking into account the earlier altercation, it was not at all clear that Indra’s actions weren’t provoked.

She wanted to ask Clarke if she was okay, if she had all her homework done, if she knew what her next steps were for the art magazine, if she was going to get enough sleep . . . but Clarke probably didn’t want to think about any of that right now.

She wanted to ask Clarke if they could still have that dinner date. Dinner . . . meeting. It wasn’t a date, of course, or, at least, Lexa was pretty sure it wasn’t a date. Was it a date? A romantic date, that is? It was too soon for that, but maybe a pre-romantic date? Was that a thing?

Lexa gulped and focused on the road. She wanted to ask Clarke on a date. She wasn’t going to ask Clarke that, though, because Clarke would just say no, and Lexa was ashamed to admit that she was terrified just imagining Clarke telling her she wasn’t interested. Knowing Clarke, she would probably explain in painstaking detail all of the reasons she would never date Lexa, then demand that Lexa pull over the car, and then walk the rest of the way home. Any other day, any other girl, Lexa would’ve just gotten it over with right now — postponing the inevitable would just make it worse. But now that it was Clarke, she couldn’t do it, which meant that Lexa was officially screwed.

She chanced a glance at Clarke, who’d put her head back against the headrest and had her eyes closed. Lexa traced the tired lines next to Clarke’s eyes, the dirty scrapes on her cheek, and stopped at her lips, slightly parted in an unreadable expression. Clarke put her phone away and tugged the sleeves of Lexa’s jacket a little further down until they entirely covered her hands, and Lexa looked quickly back to the road before Clarke could open her eyes.

“So what’s your next move?” Lexa almost jumped as Clarke broke the silence.

“Pardon?”

“For the newspaper. What’s your next move? Print the financial report info so that we can’t blackmail you? Get an inside man at the art magazine? I’m just curious.”

Thankfully, Clarke didn’t sound bitter. Well, not that bitter, anyway.

“Right now, my next move is to drive you home.”

“Oh, shit, yeah, about that . . .” Lexa frowned over at Clarke. “Do you think you could drop me off at the hospital instead?”

“The hospital?” She would have to completely turn the car around.

“Yeah, I need to stop by and tell my friends the good news. There’s too much to explain over text.”

Lexa sighed. “Very well. Try to keep it concise, though.”

“What? Why?”

Lexa glanced over at Clarke again, who was looking at her with confused suspicion.

“I would prefer not to wait in the parking lot for an exorbitant amount of time, if that’s acceptable?” She would’ve thought it was obvious, but then Clarke had had a long night.

“Oh, you don’t — you don’t have to wait, I’ll be fine.” Lexa raised her eyebrows at Clarke’s tone, which wasn’t what she’d expected from a brush-off.

“Clarke, the hospital is four miles from your house.”

“I’ll get a ride with one of them?” Lexa could hear the question mark.

“I said I would give you a ride home and I meant it.” Clarke didn’t respond and Lexa sighed. “We’re going to be working together quite closely from now on, apparently, and just so you know, we work late nights at least once a week at the newspaper, so it might help things if you at least trusted me to drive you home.”

Clarke stayed silent, and Lexa had already mentally prepared herself to start begging when Clarke finally spoke.

“Come with me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re right, we’re going to be working together. Might as well start now, let the art magazine get to know you.”

Lexa considered it. Clarke was undoubtedly aware of how tense and potentially painful it would be to introduce Lexa to the staff of the art magazine under these circumstances. On the other hand, it would have to happen eventually, and it might well be worth it to get things out of the way now, when no one could be anything but honest. Most importantly, Clarke was throwing the offer at her like a challenge, and Lexa never backed down from a challenge.

“Very well.” She looked to catch Clarke’s reaction, and was pleased to see Clarke’s eyebrows raised in what she hoped was impressed surprise.

“Really?”

“If you were serious about your offer, then I would be honored to meet your friends.”

Clarke winced slightly. “Oh, about that . . . I may have been exaggerating about the ‘friends’ part.”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite understand.” Did she mean she was exaggerating about the existence of her friends? Was she exaggerating about the degree to which she had a friendly relationship with the people they were visiting?

Clarke just sighed. “You’ll see.”

***

Lexa strode through the hospital for the second time in as many days, made confident not only by her prior knowledge of the hospital layout, but by the yellow of Clarke’s hair mixing with the green of her jacket that Clarke was still wearing.

Clarke completely ignored anyone at the front desk, and while Lexa was not at all sure that there were actually visiting hours right now, striding along hospital corridors at night with Clarke filled her with the sort of recklessness that straightened her spine and lifted her chin.

Clarke paused outside a door on the first floor and turned to Lexa. Lexa met her eyes, and Clarke just looked at her pensively for a second, before walking into the room. Lexa was a step behind her, willing herself not to be nervous about this. After Clarke chewing her out at the police station, there wasn’t much left to be afraid of, really.

“Hey, guys, I’ve got good news!”

Lexa blinked at the people in the room, who looked up in weary surprise as they entered. A dark-haired brown-skinned woman lay in a hospital bed, apparently fine above the waist, her legs covered by a thin blue hospital sheet. Two dark-haired people slumped in adjacent chairs; the bruised girl wearing a dark leather jacket was resting her head on the shoulder of the scowling man, who responded to Clarke.

“Is this really the best time?”

“Shut up, Bellamy, I could use some good news right now.” The dark-haired girl in the bed looked wan enough that Lexa felt comfortable concluding that there was some injuries hiding under the blanket. That or she had serious internal bleeding, although that usually required immediate medical attention.

“We’ve got our magazine!” Clarke was a little tired for the ‘ta-da’ tone she was going for, but Lexa still watched her cheeks curl up in only the second smile she’d seen from Clarke all day.

“Shut up!” The dark-haired girl with the leather jacket suddenly looked up, and although Lexa could tell that her invective was meant enthusiastically, Clarke’s smile was replaced by a worry crease between her eyes. Lexa glowered at the girl who’d disturbed Clarke’s moment of triumph, even as the girl got to her feet, a sudden smile on her face, and flung herself at Clarke. “Thank you so much!”

Lexa blinked in surprise, meeting Clarke’s equally-shocked eyes over the dark-haired girl’s shoulder. Apparently Clarke did not typically hug the enthusiastic girl.

“Uh . . . you’re welcome, Octavia?” Clarke awkwardly patted the girl on the back.

Octavia pulled back and gave Clarke a fierce look. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Lexa blew out an amused breath through her nostrils at Clarke’s dry response.

“Yeah, Clarke, that’s amazing.” The dark-haired man was standing too, giving Octavia a warm look. “How exactly do we have our magazine?” He was definitely warier than his girlfriend — or possibly sister . . . they did share similar hair and noses — but he still looked at Clarke with clear eyes.

“Well, I went back to my house to find that the managing editor from the newspaper, you know, the one that I’d literally just been meeting with, was breaking into my house.”

“The fuck!” The exclamation came from the girl on the bed. Now that Lexa looked at her stormy scowl and clenched fists more closely, it was abundantly clear that the injured girl would only have been incapacitated after injuring quite a few other members of her soccer team.

“So the attack on us was probably a plan to make sure I didn’t get back to my house,” Clarke plowed on, ignoring the girl’s outburst, “meaning that she was pretty surprised when I showed up with a police officer. From there, it was pretty easy to tell the editor-in-chief that they had a choice between their managing editor being slapped with criminal charges or letting us have our magazine.”

“Fuck yeah! I wish I could’ve seen the look on that smug, smarmy asshole’s stupid face when you —”

Clarke cleared her throat and Lexa sort of wanted to laugh as Clarke glanced at her uncomfortably.

“Hey, guys, by the way, I think introductions are in order.” The three people looked at Lexa with polite disinterest. “Octavia, Bellamy, and Raven,” she pointed at each so Lexa could associate names with faces, “this is my friend Lexa.”

Lexa raised her chin and concealed the smile that wanted to burst from her lips. She could get used to being introduced as Clarke’s friend Lexa.

“It is good to meet all of you.” They just sort of looked at her.

“Lexa hit me with her motorcycle when I biked in front of her Friday night after the party.” The dark-skinned woman, Raven, raised her eyebrows in a moment of comprehension. “Anyway, so, the reason she’s here now is because I was just meeting with her at the police station. She’s the editor in chief of the _Grounds_.”

“WHAT?!”

Octavia stumbled back a step, Bellamy’s blank look turned to a glare, and Raven . . . Lexa was now completely sure that Raven had a broken leg, because otherwise the woman would obviously have gotten out of her bed and physically attacked Lexa.

“Why the fuck did you bring her here?” Bellamy hissed.

“The answer better be ‘so that I can beat her bloody’!” Raven snarled, obviously considering getting out of bed despite her broken leg.

“I brought her here so that we could discuss the details of our art magazine.” The weight of authority was back in Clarke’s voice as she stepped forward. “The magazine that we now have because she chose to give us the money we need. We have spent months working for this magazine, months of fighting the administration and alumni and the newspaper to get the money we need, and some of us have gotten hurt in the process, so I understand why you’re upset, but I DON’T CARE.”

Lexa should probably see how the other three were reacting, but she couldn’t move her eyes from Clarke. Was this how she’d been when she’d been threatening Lexa? Lexa honestly couldn’t remember; she’d been so flooded with adrenaline she’d been barely able to think, let alone remember in detail the set of Clarke’s jaw or the way her hands were clenched in fists or the precise way Clarke clipped off her syllables. She realized that her jaw was hanging open and shut it with a click, glancing at Clarke’s colleagues, who were thankfully too mesmerized by Clarke to have noticed.

“This isn’t about us versus the _Grounds_ , and it never has been.” Octavia opened her mouth to interject, but Clarke steamrolled over her. “It has always been about getting a magazine, or had you forgotten that this magazine is the only chance some of us have at a career?” Octavia couldn’t meet Clarke’s fierce look, and Lexa felt the strangest pang of jealousy.

“Perhaps more to the point, you are one of us now.” There was a moment of dead silence as everyone turned to Lexa, who concealed a smile. Clarke had given her the hook, she just needed to reel them in. “You have every right to be angry at me, as I have every right to be angry at the people who stole from us, threatened us, and physically attacked one of my staff members in our own offices.” She wasn’t sure who had actually done the attacking, but none of them disagreed with her. “But according to the terms of our deal, your art magazine is now technically on the _Grounds_ payroll, and at the _Grounds_ , the job comes first. Can you do that?”

She met all of their eyes in turn. Bellamy met her cool gaze and he seemed not to have anything to hide, but he turned to Octavia. Octavia was pulsing with rage, but Lexa stared her down as her rage cooled into angry acceptance. She was one to watch, undoubtedly, but if she wanted her art magazine badly enough to commit a felony, Lexa had to guess she’d be willing to design a website too. She probably shouldn’t ever be in the same room as Indra, though.

Raven, however.

“Just to be clear, bitch, I’m not on the art magazine. I just want you to know that what I’m about to say next is coming straight from me: fuck you and fuck your newspaper and fuck your whore mother and fuck your absent father. You should be looking over your shoulder, bitch, because I am going to destroy you.”

Lexa was actually surprised at the vehemence of Raven’s vitriol, but outright hostility had been what she’d expected, so it was easy for her to keep her face smooth and expressionless as she ignored Raven and turned to Clarke.

“Perhaps you can understand why I had reservations about accepting your offer the first time?”

Clarke just sighed. “Yeah, I suppose I can see where you were coming from. But she wasn’t lying, Raven isn’t actually a part of the magazine, she was just . . . freelancing.”

“Speaking of lying, why exactly are we supposed to trust you? How do we know you’re actually going to help us?”

Bellamy had his arms crossed, but he seemed reasonable. Lexa could work with that.

“I am not asking you to trust me. I am offering an exchange of goods and services: the money for your magazine in exchange for a top-quality website for my paper and the continued freedom of my managing editor. I had been led to believe that was an exchange that would be agreeable to you, but perhaps there was a miscommunication.”

She glanced at Clarke out of the side of her eye. Clarke turned slightly towards her and crossed her arms, and when she spoke, Lexa delighted in the spark in her voice.

“What do you say, Bell? Can you trust capitalism?”

Bellamy huffed but Lexa could tell he was satisfied with the answer.

“As long as we have complete artistic control over our magazine, and there’s an ironclad contract so that the newspaper can’t screw us over.”

“Your leader has already made sure of the second part of your demand,” Lexa looked over at Clarke in time to catch the slight raise of her lips at being called the _Delinquents’_ leader. “And you will of course have complete control of your magazine. I have never been opposed to the existence of an art magazine in general; I was quite impressed by your trial run and am looking forward to seeing more of your work. I especially enjoyed the poem entitled ‘The Space of Home’.”

She looked right at Octavia, enjoying the woman’s blink as she recognized the name of her poem.

“You actually read that?”

Lexa minutely dipped her head. “It was raw, sometimes to the point of being unprofessional, but the jarring tone felt intentional. Your description of the landscape of home was both alien and intimately familiar. As I said, I was impressed.”

Octavia just nodded, her jaw moving, though her mouth stayed closed. Lexa could suddenly feel Clarke’s presence a bare inch from her side, and although she mostly just wanted to lean into the girl at her side and see how her own coat felt on Clarke, she knew that Clarke was just trying to communicate congratulations. Lexa did not know the dynamics of the art magazine’s staff, but Octavia and Bellamy were clearly sold on the deal.

“God, she’s playing you like a fucking fiddle. Get the fuck out of my hospital room.”

Lexa turned to Clarke. “Come, there is little else to accomplish here.”

“Yeah,” Clarke agreed with a small smile in the corners of her lips. “Let’s get outta here.”

***

“So . . . thank you.”

Lexa blinked at Clarke as they settled once more into the slightly sagging seats of the Cutlass.

“I am afraid I’m unsure what you are thanking me for.”

Clarke leaned back on the headrest and turned slightly towards Lexa.

“Well, for one thing, you killed it in there. I didn’t think there was any way I was going to be able to get Octavia and Bellamy on board, but you completely sold it. That’s going to make my job like ten times easier, so thanks for that.”

Lexa inclined her head slightly to acknowledge Clarke’s thanks. “I am happy to help, although you are clearly underestimating yourself. The force of your leadership is quite evident, and I have no doubt that your art magazine staff will follow your command without question.”

Clarke scoffed. “You haven’t met the _Delinquents_ staff.”

“I’ve met you.” Lexa’s voice was low.

Clarke blinked and turned to fully face Lexa, staring at her for a long moment with a look Lexa couldn’t decipher. Lexa was trying to remain calm and collected, but she was failing badly in the face of, well, Clarke’s face.

“Thank you.” Clarke’s face was still intense as she searched Lexa’s eyes for . . . what, Lexa wasn’t sure. “You know, at first I was pissed that you were the editor in chief of the _Grounds_.”

“I’m aware.”

Clarke huffed, and Lexa could see the smile threatening to spread across her lips. “Well . . . yeah. But that was dumb, because I was always going to have to spend a ton of time with whoever turned out to be the editor in chief, so if it was some douchebag like I’d been afraid of, my life would really suck for the next six months. So, uh . . . I’m glad it’s you.”

Lexa gulped, aware of how dry her mouth was and where her hands were and that she was supposed to have started the car two minutes ago. She didn’t miss the way that Clarke’s eyes followed the bob of her throat, or how Clarke looked like she’d figured out whatever it was she was looking for in Lexa’s eyes earlier.

“I look forward to working together as well.”

There was a tiny, soft smile on Clarke’s face and a dazed sort of surprise in her eyes and she was very close to Lexa and it was warm in the car and Lexa’s eyes were wide and she accidentally looked down at Clarke’s lips, which was a horrible mistake.

“I guess I should probably apologize for being a complete dick to you earlier?” Clarke had a wry smile on her face.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re going to have to be more specific about which time you are referring to.”

Clarke threw back her head and laughed, loud and throaty. Lexa turned the car on, mostly so she could start driving and give herself something to look at that wasn’t Clarke.

“Okay, good point, I was a bit of a dick pretty much all tonight. I meant in front of Anya. Things got a little intense, and I’m sorry about that.”

Lexa frowned. Clarke had said some overly personal things at several points after the meeting, and ‘intense’ was a bit of an understatement for how she’d been in the station, but Lexa couldn’t think of anything Clarke had to apologize for.

“Clarke, you were acting as the representative for the _Delinquents_ , and you were negotiating for the survival of your organization. I was impressed by your skill and poise, you showed the strength of a true leader.”

“Lexa, I yelled at you in front of your friend and a bunch of cops and basically blackmailed you.”

“It worked, correct?”

“I mean, you agreed to fund the _Delinquents_ , so I guess . . .”

“Then do not pretend that you regret your actions.”

“Look, Lexa, just because I had to do something for the good of the art magazine doesn’t mean I can’t also feel like crap for being mean to you.”

“You may choose to feel miserable about an action that you know was necessary, but it accomplishes nothing.” Lexa wasn’t trying to irritate Clarke, but she couldn’t just let Clarke walk around feeling guilty for no reason.

“Well, what I was trying to accomplish was letting you know that I’m not an emotionless, robotic ASSH —” Clarke cut herself off and put a hand over her eyes. Lexa wasn’t sure why Clarke was angry, given that Lexa had just been telling her why she hadn’t done anything wrong and therefore had no need to apologize in the first place. “I’m sorry,” Clarke said tiredly. “I’m being a dick again. Look, Lexa, I know what I did and said in the police station put you in a position you didn’t want to be in. You’re right, I don’t regret it and I would do it again, but it still sucks. I wanted you to know that I give a shit about your feelings and I didn’t enjoy being a dick to you. Apparently you don’t care about that, though, so fine.”

Well, Clarke continued to be completely wrong, about the last part, at least. But Lexa supposed she understood where Clarke was coming from, so she let it slide. There was a few seconds of silence as Lexa waited until that conversation was well and truly over, before she continued to her next question.

“I’m curious, Clarke, do you have any plans for the type of art you will be including in your first issue?”

She could feel Clarke brighten beside her. “Yeah! I’m really hoping to do like a protest or revolution theme or something! I know Wells has a couple of awesome photographs and there’s some . . .”

Lexa smiled as Clarke burbled away happily, content just to listen to Clarke’s enthusiasm. She shot glances over at Clarke occasionally, admiring the way Clarke seemed to know the skills and interests of everyone at her magazine, already imagining the art they would be best suited to contribute. She couldn’t stop herself from imagining what it would be like to be one of Clarke’s people, for Clarke to know her passions and plan for her like that. It wasn’t likely to happen, though.

“Hopefully, we’ll get tons of submissions too, and my plans will be completely shot because of all the other art from everyone on campus. Do you write or paint or anything?”

Lexa blinked for a second, thrown by the question. “Not particularly. I write for classes, obviously, and for the newspaper when there’s something that needs to be said.”

“Are you any good?”

“Excuse me?”

“As a writer, are you any good?”

Lexa looked over and quirked an eyebrow. It was a very Clarke question to ask. “It isn’t conventional to ask someone to judge their own skill.”

Clarke actually rolled her eyes. Lexa didn’t think she’d ever seen anyone do that in real life. “Yeah, because you’re so likely to lie to me. Seriously, Lexa, I’m curious, and don’t try and pretend that you’re a bad judge of your writing ability.”

Lexa regarded her for a second. Clarke was, as ever, completely earnest. It reminded Lexa of the first time she’d met Clarke, drunk and bleeding and asking Lexa with desperate intensity if Lexa thought she was fun.

“I am a competent nonfiction writer, but I have never tried my hand at fiction. Given my lack of practice, I am sure I would do poorly, and even with practice, I doubt fiction would be my style.”

“Really? I don’t know, I kind of had you pegged as an amateur poet.”

Lexa looked over again and now Clarke had a secret smile on her face as she looked out the windshield, not meeting Lexa’s eyes. Lexa couldn’t tell if Clarke was joking or not, but either way, she felt a broad smile covering her face.

“Is that so?”

“Definitely,” Clarke nodded sagely. “Probably super deep poems about philosophical concepts or something. Maybe in Greek. Or like, half in Greek.”

“In Greek?” Lexa was still smiling as she put a hand to her chest in faux horror. “Do you really think so little of me? I’m shocked and horrified.”

“No? No Greek? Are you sure? Not even once?”

“Come now, Clarke, I thought you knew me better than this. Now, French, on the other hand . . .”

“Oh shit!” Clarke slapped herself on the forehead. “Duh, I knew that, that was my bad.”

Lexa felt a laugh bubbling up inside of her and was shocked to realize that Clarke had made her want to laugh more times in the two days she’d known her than she’d laughed at all in probably the last two months.

“Wait, hold up, I think I’ve got the hang of Lexa poetry.” Clarke flung her hand out, and even with her eyes firmly on the road, Lexa could see Clarke’s hand floating in the air between them. Lexa left her hand on the gear stick, trying to process the fact that Clarke’s hand was scant inches from her own and, worse, that she was imagining what Clarke’s hand would feel like on hers. “Tell me if this is close:” Clarke cleared her throat. “ _Le Force Majeur_ by Alexandria Forrester.” Her voice was exaggeratedly smooth and sultry. Lexa suddenly found the blank suburban road very interesting. “Dark sun under an azure sky / Death of innocence in my eyes / Sweat glinting on outstretched thighs / All I want is a piece of pie.”

Lexa started laughing after the second line, unable to resist the way Clarke paused to provide line breaks, her fist clenched melodramatically in front of her.

“Spot on,” she confirmed once she’d stopped laughing.

“As I suspected,” Clarke’s voice was smug. “You should definitely submit some to the _Delinquents_. It would fit right in.”

“Oh, I sincerely hope it wouldn’t fit right in. I’d hate to regret giving you 4,000 dollars.”

Clarke didn’t respond, and she glanced over to see Clarke looking away from her. Oh no, she’d screwed up, she’d screwed up everything, why did she have to say that, this was horrible.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you don’t regret it.” Lexa pursed her lips and repressed a sigh. She hadn’t even noticed how different Clarke sounded until the weight of responsibility was back in her voice. She admired Clarke’s strength and leadership, but it was the other Clarke, the light-hearted Clarke, that had made her laugh. “This is my house.”

Lexa pulled up in front of Clarke’s apartment, which was just as charming at night, and chose not to tell Clarke that she knew exactly which apartment was hers. Lexa was very good with directions.

There was a moment of silence, just enough time for Lexa to focus on every single part of her body all at once. Her palms were sweaty, her lips were dry, and her stomach felt cold and unstable. She was pathetic, absolutely pathetic. Clarke still hadn’t gotten out of the car.

“Well, um, good night.” Clarke had one hand on the door, but she was looking at Lexa.

“Good night.” If you let her walk out of here on that note, Lexa, you will be sad and pathetic all night. Don’t do it. Don’t be sad and pathetic. “I was wondering, Clarke . . .”

“Yes?” Clarke was still sitting in Lexa’s car, still staring at her.

“I never did get a chance to discuss my thesis with you.”

“That’s true.” Clarke was smiling and her hand left the door handle.

“Normally I wouldn’t bother you this many times over something so trivial. However, we’re going to spend time together this week anyway, and my colleagues have already offered me as much feedback as they are capable of. Perhaps you could use listening to my thesis as a way to perform penance, if you still feel guilty about our conversation earlier.”

“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count as penance if I enjoy it.”

Lexa just stared at the slight upwards tilt at the corner of Clarke’s mouth and tried to maintain her decorum.

“I will take that as an acceptance.”

“That’s awfully forward of you.”

Oh no, Clarke was flirting with her. Didn’t she have a boyfriend? Didn’t Lexa have some dignity?

“I suppose it is.”

“Very well, then, I accept. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

“Excellent.”

Clarke opened the door, and until the night air rushed in, Lexa hadn’t realized quite how warm it was in the car.

“Good night, Lexa.”

“Good night, Clarke.”

Clarke slammed the door behind her and Lexa watched her head to her door. Clarke was still wearing Lexa’s jacket. Lexa wondered idly if she would ever get the jacket back, and wondered nervously if she cared.

Clarke waved slightly before disappearing into her house and Lexa stayed outside her house a second longer, the engine idling, thoughts of Clarke’s hair and Clarke’s smile wafting through her head. Lexa supposed she might as well accept that sad and pathetic was her life now.


	9. You Don't Always Get To Choose Who Gets Hurt

Clarke limped into her photography class holding an espresso. It was 8:53 in the morning, she’d gotten a solid nine hours of sleep, and she had most of her homework for today done, but she still felt like she’d been lightly pureed. Her arm hurt even though she’d already taken two painkillers today.

Wells was the only one already here, and even though Clarke could still feel an unpleasant buzzing behind her eyes, she felt lighter remembering that she could look at him again. This class had been real awkward for the last two months, because Clarke had refused to move seats, but she had also refused to acknowledge Wells’ existence.

“Good morning, Wells!”

“Good morning, Clarke,” he responded with a tentative smile. “I see you’re still alive. I was a little worried after your cryptic texts last night . . . and this morning.”

“Oh, yeah, sorry about that,” she’d forgotten that she’d failed to explain absolutely anything to Wells. “You’ve got the flash drive? No one ambushed you? Broke into your house?”

“Yes, no, and no . . . was that something I should’ve been worried about?”

Good, she’d been worried Lexa might’ve stolen a march on her, but no one from the newspaper had been able to track Wells down in the last ten hours.

“I think Lexa might’ve overheard me mention that you had it, so someone from the newspaper is probably going to be coming for you. That’s why you’re giving it to me.”

“Wait, why would it matter if Lexa . . . what happened last night?”

Clarke waved a hand airily. She didn’t have time for this — they needed to make the switch before anyone else walked in. “Oh, I was with Bellamy, Octavia, and Raven, and we got jumped by some newspaper assholes, and then the managing editor had broken into my house, so it turned out okay because I threatened the editor with pressing charges if she didn’t take our deal.”

“What?!”

“Also the editor in chief is Lexa. I don’t know if you knew that.”

Wells frowned at her contemplatively for entirely too long, and Clarke impatiently shot a quick glance at the door. The class wasn’t supposed to start for ten minutes, and the prof never got here more than three minutes before class started, but still.

“So you think Lexa is going to try and get it from me?”

“Obviously.” Clarke held out her hand expectantly.

Wells just shrugged. “I’ll just keep it on me all the time, it’s no problem.”

“Did you not hear the part about how they jumped us? If it’s on your person, that’ll just make it easier for them to find!”

Wells raised an eyebrow. “You really think Lexa is going to physically beat me up and take the flash drive from my pocket? I mean, I know she’s intimidating and everything, but . . .”

Clarke rolled her eyes. “Obviously she’s not going to personally come and take it from you. Also . . .” she thought back to the hunting knife and the cords of Lexa’s arms. “I’m pretty sure she could kill you.” Wells looked skeptical. “Look, you know Raven? The chick who punched me in the face? She’s probably the scariest person I know, and they broke her leg last night, okay? So please, Wells, just give me the flash drive.”

“You actually think whoever has the flash drive is going to be in danger?”

“No, I think that _you’re_ going to be in danger, because they think you have the report. The least I can do is make sure you don’t actually have it. And for the love of God, stay somewhere with a door that locks.”

“But if you have it, then they’ll come for you.”

Clarke sighed. Wells was a very intelligent young man, but he was a little slow when it came to stuff like this. “They’ve already come for me, so now they know I don’t have it. So they won’t bother me any more.” Well, they probably wouldn’t bother her any more. In reality, they knew she would know where the report was, so they still might come for her, but she didn’t need to tell Wells that.

“Unless they figure out you have the report.”

“Which they won’t if you give it to me before someone walks in!”

“No.”

Clarke tried to convey in a single look exactly how little time or patience she had for Wells’ shit. “I beg your pardon?”

“If whoever has the flash drive is in danger of being attacked, then you’re the last person who should have it. If we really wanted to give it someone that no one would guess, we should give it to Bellamy.”

What the hell? “I’m not going to give it to Bellamy!”

“Why not? He’s the obvious choice.”

“Because I don’t trust him with it!”

“But you trust me?” Wells’ voice was soft and Clarke realized too late that she’d walked right into his manipulative little point. That’s what happened when she tried to have important conversations before she’d had her coffee.

“Yes . . . but I won’t let you get hurt over this.” Over me, she didn’t say.

His shoulders slump, but the line of his jaw is still determined. “You don’t always get to choose who gets hurt.”

“Sometimes I do, though.” The first student in the class walked in the door, a bright-eyed junior whose photographs were always of people from the dorm where he was an RA. They were always smiling.

“Besides, I still don’t believe that Lexa would have ever sent anyone to hurt you . . . or anyone from the magazine.” She wasn’t sure why he paused, but she didn’t bother to think about it at length.

“Did you miss the part where the managing editor broke into my house? Literally the day after I showed Lexa where I lived?”

“Your address is also on your student page on the university website.”

“The managing editor of the paper broke into my house at exactly the same time I was supposed to be meeting with Lexa. You really think that’s a coincidence?”

“But didn’t you catch the managing editor? Wait, which one is the managing editor?”

“Her name is Anya, she has really sharp eyeliner. You haven’t met. And the only reason I caught her was because I convinced the police officers to take me there after I got beaten to a pulp!”

She caught the next student who was walking in giving her a weird look. As if she cared.

“If you were on your way to meet Lexa, why would she send someone to attack you? She didn’t need a distraction if she already knew you were meeting her.”

Clarke opened her mouth to retort, but couldn’t think of anything. She remembered the slightly out of control tone she’d heard in Lexa’s voice when Clarke had told her what had happened.

“Lexa’s the leader of the newspaper, and we got attacked by people trying to get the flash drive back, so, what, she just had no idea that this was happening?”

“Can you control the _Delinquents_ staff?”

Clarke snorted, before getting his point. “Oh, come on, I’m not even officially the leader or anything, plus they’re all a bunch of —”

“So you think it’s completely impossible that there’s anyone on the _Grounds_ who might do something without Lexa’s direct say-so?”

“I don’t know, they are a lot more put-together of an organization than us.”

“Not that that’s saying much.” Wells waited for the tail end of Clarke’s huff before continuing. “Look, has she ever done anything that would make you think she’d hurt you?”

“Wells, you do realize that I met her when she hit me with her motorcycle, right?”

“Weren’t you drunk at the time?”

“And riding the wrong way down a one-way street, but that’s not the point!”

“What is the point?” God, Wells could not take even the slightest bit of humor.

“The point is . . .” Clarke paused. What was the point? Could she prove that Lexa had ever done anything to her? Technically, no. Lexa had gotten Buddy fixed, had waited in the art lobby for her at midnight for no discernible reason, and driven her home from the hospital . . . twice.

While she was considering it, Octavia dropped down in the seat on her other side. It wasn’t where Octavia normally sat, and Clarke was pretty sure that the poor sophomore who usually sat there was going to be confused when he walked in.

“Nice jacket, Clarke.”

“Uh . . . thanks. Have you picked out what you’re going to submit for the first issue?”

Octavia shrugged, slouching back in her desk, pulling an apple out of her canvas knapsack and taking a large, slurping bite. “Nah, haven’t decided yet. I’ve got a couple of things I’m working on, but I might make something new just for the issue, y’know?”

“Yeah, that makes sense. I was thinking of having the first issue maybe have a theme of some sort, to give you something to think about for your submission. It might help the pieces flow together better too.”

Octavia nodded, chewing thoughtfully before taking another large, loud bite of her apple. “What theme were you thinking?”

“I was leaning towards something like protest or revolution. Something in that vein.”

“Yeah, wow, that would be awesome!” Octavia sat up from her slouch, looking at Clarke with bright eyes. “I’ve actually had a sort of idea floating around that might work great for that.”

Clarke smiled. She’d known Octavia would like that choice of theme. Hopefully it meant that Octavia would have some top-quality writing for the first edition of the _Delinquents_ — maybe even quality enough for her to use for writing samples down the road when the young, fiery writer started applying for jobs.

She turned back to Wells to see him frowning at the sleeves of her jacket, which slipped past her hand. She shoved the sleeves up her arms quickly, and the professor started talking right as Wells opened his mouth.

“I hope you all had a good weekend. As you know, we’ve been talking about . . .”

Wells immediately turned to the professor, opened up his notebook, and wrote the date and class name at the top of the page. Clarke decided not to reflect on why exactly she was relieved that Wells was too much of a nerd to talk in class, and just flipped to the next page in her doodle-encrusted photography notebook.

The sleeve of Lexa’s jacket slipped softly back down her arm.

***

 **Lexa (11:47 am):** _Would you consider stopping by the Grounds office tonight for a few hours? I would like for you to see the day-to-day running of the Grounds so that you will be able to discuss the best way to incorporate website management into our current routine._

 **Lexa (11:50 am):** _Perhaps we could get coffee or pastries afterwards._

 **(11:57 am):** _Yeah!_

 **(11:57 am):** _Wait, shit_

 **(11:57 am):** _I have tutoring tonight_

 **(11:57 am):** _Tomorrow?_

 **Lexa (11:59 am):** _Tomorrow is our layout night, so the whole staff will be there. As long as you are comfortable meeting the entire staff, then that would be an excellent day for you to see how our organization operates._

 **(12:00 pm):** _Will there be snacks?_

 **(12:00 pm):** _Clarke Griffin, asking the real questions_

 **Lexa (12:01 pm):** _Yes, Clarke, there will be snacks. We typically have several types of fruit, assorted chips, miniature brownies, ginger snaps, apple cider, and some other desserts and beverages._

 **(12:02 pm):** _Damn, the grounds knows how to have a good time_

 **(12:02 pm):** _Now I’m hungry_

 **(12:02 pm):** _I’m gonna grab some food before lab_

 **(12:03 pm):** _See you tomorrow at the buffet ;)_

***

Her arm hurt, which she decided to blame for the fact that she didn’t remember that Finn was in this class until she walked in the door to the depressing, fluorescent-lit lab.

She very nearly walked right back out when she saw him, because she really wasn’t feeling good, but that wasn’t fair to him. They needed to talk, and they’d been needing to talk ever since she’d been punched in the face, but things had sort of . . . gotten in the way.

“Hey, princess.” Finn’s voice was soft and concerned when she sat down at his table. She slumped in her chair, dumping her backpack and second espresso of the day on the table and glancing with disinterest at the materials for the day’s lab. “You okay? Normally you’re much more excited about DNA.”

That was what she liked about Finn: he tried to look out for her. He was always trying to get her to sleep more or drink less coffee, and it felt so good to have someone actually worry about her, even though she never once actually followed any of his advice.

“Long weekend,” she sighed.

“You know, most people spend their weekends doing fun, relaxing things. Did you do any fun, relaxing things this weekend?”

Clarke thought. Did she? Surely she’d done one thing that had been fun and/or relaxing.

“I had coffee with Lexa.”

“Oh yeah?” He smiled and flipped his hair out of his eyes. “The chick with the knife? Good to hear you’re making friends who also know how to relax.”

Clarke smiled at that.

“Yeah, well, despite the weaponry, that was probably the most fun, relaxing part of the weekend. That’s not really saying much, though, seeing as the rest of the weekend was a steady progression from ‘punched in the face’ to ‘broke my arm’ to ‘spent the night filling out paperwork in a police station after being physically assaulted’.”

“Wait, what?!” Finn was loud enough that the professor frowned over at them from where she was explaining the procedures for the lab. He made a quick ‘yikes, sorry’ face at the professor and immediately turned back to Clarke. “I thought you just hurt your arm in a bike crash? What else happened?”

“Oh, you didn’t hear? Didn’t Raven tell you?”

“Raven? I mean, I was there when she hit you, if that’s what you’re —”

“No, oh my god.” Clarke waved her hand at that old news, glancing guiltily at the professor. She knew the biology department like the back of her hand, and was old friends with some of the professors, but she barely knew this slim, white-haired prof. If she didn’t know the prof, then she didn’t care enough to pay attention to the woman explaining what was already on the lab procedures sheet in front of her. “I mean all the other stuff.”

“Other stuff? What other stuff?”

Clarke sighed. This could take a while. “It’s a long story. You should ask Raven. We got beaten up by some people from the newspaper and then I caught their managing editor breaking into my house and I threatened them into agreeing to fund our magazine.”

“Wow, talk about a stressful weekend. Is Raven okay?”

“You don’t know?” Oh no, this was really going to be a rough conversation. Everyone else in class had started on the lab, judging by the way students kept getting out of their seats and going to the middle table to get . . . whatever stuff that Clarke was probably supposed to be grabbing. “The newspaper people broke her leg.”

Finn paled. “What?”

“She . . . uh . . . didn’t tell you?”

He shook his head, dumbstruck. “Do you mind if I . . .” he pointed vaguely towards the door, pulling out his phone.

“No. Go.” She smiled sadly as Finn stumbled out of the room, his phone already ringing.

She started absentmindedly swabbing the inside of her cheek for the DNA they’d need for lab today, which she still hadn’t looked at. She had no problem giving Finn his moment, but it just reminded her that she had to break up with him before she left the room. She couldn’t justify getting in between Finn and Raven, no matter how much she cared about Finn or how much he claimed that he and Raven were through. Even if Finn really didn’t have any more romantic feelings for his childhood sweetheart, they had a story and a history that Clarke didn’t have with him — couldn’t have with him. It would be completely selfish of Clarke to try and worm her way in after that, and even if she were inclined to be that selfish, a relationship that started with Clarke breaking up a couple like that would be sure to end badly.

Clarke had already figured out what the lab was about, gotten the enzymes she needed, written down her prediction, and mixed her DNA and enzymes by the time Finn came back.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that . . . did you even do anything while I was gone?” Finn gave her a confused smile.

“Uh, yes, actually, I did all of the prep, now we’re just waiting thirty minutes for the enzymes to —”

“Okay, okay!” He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry for questioning. I was just afraid you were finally going to make me actually figure this shit out on my own, because I would be totally hosed.”

“Don’t worry about it, I care way too much about my grade to take you down with me.”

“Saved by Clarke Griffin’s monstrous selfishness, as usual.” He shot a crooked smile her way as he read over her predictions and the lab procedure. “Hey, by the way, I just wanted to let you know, I’m probably going to go see Raven tonight, just because, you know, she’s in the hospital, and, I mean —”

“I get it.” Finn awkwardly asking permission to visit his oldest friend in the hospital was a sharp reminder of why she couldn’t do this to him. “While you’re there, you should talk with Raven about your relationship with her,” Finn looked down and started to nod, but she knew he was thinking the wrong thing. “Because you don’t have to worry about me being in the way.”

“What?” He looked up. Maybe it was a bad idea to do this now, with another two hours of lab still to go.

“I know you care about me, and I really care about you, but Finn, Raven has been in love with you since you were kids, and I still have bruises on my face to prove it.”

“Okay, no, that’s completely —”

“It’s not about her punching me, Finn! It’s about . . . what you two have. I can’t get in the way of that, it’s not fair to either of you.”

“Look, if you think I’m still in love with her, you’re —”

“It doesn’t matter. The way your relationship with her ended couldn’t possibly have given either of you any sort of closure, and you can’t figure out where you stand with her with me here.”

“Don’t I get any feedback on what I can and can’t do?” He didn’t sound angry, and beneath the hurt, Clarke could see understanding starting to dawn.

“No matter what you or I can do, we can’t make a relationship grow out of where you and Raven left things off. I think you know that as well as I do.”

He gulped and looked down. “Okay. I get it.”

They sat in horrible silence for a second before he looked back up, the beginnings of tears in his eyes.

“I hate to do this, but can you . . . can I . . .” he stopped and took a few deep breaths, but Clarke knew what he meant.

“Yeah, it’s no problem. Go, I’ll finish the lab.”

He nodded, picked up his backpack, and left the room. Clarke wanted nothing more than to wait a few seconds, leave, find a quiet closet somewhere, and cry for the next thirty minutes. She took a deep breath, isolating the shaky feeling in her lungs and shoving it deep down in her chest. Her academic career didn’t have time for crying.

***

Clarke debated the merits of falling asleep on her desk versus starting on her genetics homework for tomorrow. On the one hand, she still felt like complete crap, even though it was closing in on 8:30 at night and she’d had four espressos today. On the other hand, she’d just have to do her genetics homework anyway whenever she woke up from what promised to be a disorienting nap.

If only she actually had some tutoring to do to distract her from this terrible choice. Sadly, there was only one student actually in the room for the drop-in organic chemistry tutoring session, a nerdy-looking kid who hadn’t actually asked any of the tutors for help yet. Lots of kids did that, they just used the drop-in sessions as a way of scheduling time to actually do their homework where there would be someone around to help if they got stuck. Thing was, the ones who were responsible enough to schedule their time like that were usually okay at figuring out the homework on their own.

That left her and the three other people assigned as tutors just sitting around doing their homework for the whole three-hour session.

“Can you believe we get paid for this?” Clarke asked Monty, the tutor at the desk next to her.

Monty didn’t even look up from his homework. “We are living the dream, my friend.”

Clarke waited for him to add something, but he didn’t. Could he not see that she was begging for someone to entertain her? Stupid studious chemistry majors. Monty was in advanced organic chemistry, so he could probably actually help anyone who had a question, whereas Clarke had just squeaked through two semesters of intro organic with an A-, which was the only requirement to be a tutor. Her tutoring technique mostly consisted of helping people find the right information in their textbook, because she could barely remember half of the stuff they’d learned from that class. The intro chem tutoring sessions usually had way more people with questions, so Clarke spent all of her time at those sessions actually tutoring people. Normally she appreciated getting paid to do nothing, but right now she was mostly just bored out of her skull.

She slumped in the small, uncomfortable desk and pulled her computer out of her bag. Odds were she’d gotten about five emails in the last hour, so that might distract her for all of ten minutes or so.

***

The _Grounds_ ([grounds@um.edu](mailto:grounds@um.edu))

Subject: Detailed schedule of operations

Clarke,

Attached is a detailed schedule of the weekly operation of the _Grounds_. I would like your input on when you think would be the optimal time for your organization to upload articles to the website.

My thought was that most articles could be uploaded at one time during the week, probably after layout on Tuesday but before distribution on Friday. I would also like your input on the process for uploading important or timely articles. Ideally, those sorts of articles would be uploaded as soon as the article was completed — please review the copyediting procedure for articles, however, as that would have to be completed before articles could be posted.

Hopefully you get a chance to look this over and put some ideas together before we meet in person tomorrow. If you find yourself too busy, do not feel the need to devote undue attention to this matter — we can address it in person tomorrow. I wanted to ensure that you had the information you needed before our meeting.

Regards,

Alexandria Forrester

Editor in chief | The _Grounds_

***

Clarke sat up in her chair. Oh thank god, something important to do. Lexa’s clipped tones echoed in her memory, and Clarke had to conceal a smile as she read the painfully formal email. Perhaps it was the coffee kicking in, but Clarke felt an urgent need to tell someone how ridiculous this email was. She looked around, but Monty had gotten up to help the lone student, and she didn’t know the other two tutors well enough to tell them about this. Left with no other option, she turned to her phone.

 **(8:29 pm):** _College: where students write emails like they were Supreme Court justices and professors write emails like 15yrolds._

 **Wells (8:30 pm):** _That’s not true at all._

 **Wells (8:30 pm):** _Have you ever read a Supreme Court opinion?_

 **Wells (8:30 pm):** _They’re like twenty page expletive-laced rants_

Clarke beamed at her phone. God it felt good to have a friend again.

 **(8:31 pm):** _Really??? I feel like I could see Ruth Bader Ginsburg going off on a bitch_

 **(8:32 pm):** _For real though, you should read this email from Lexa_

 **(8:32 pm):** _It’s too much_

Speaking of Lexa . . .

 **(8:32 pm):** _Devote undue attention? Really?_

 **Lexa (8:33 pm):** _My kingdom for some context._

Clarke’s smile grew as she tried to think of the best thing to say back.

“Clarke, I’m glad you’re having fun texting your boyfriend, but you know the rules of organic chemistry: no fun allowed.”

Clarke froze. She knew Monty was joking and hoping for a laugh, but she couldn’t muster up a witty response over the pit that had opened up in her chest. She kept a polite smile on her face until Monty disappointedly turned back to helping floppy-haired kid, who suddenly reminded her of Finn. When she was sure no one was paying attention to her, she dropped her head onto her desk and stuck her phone directly in front of her face. Suddenly she was having a lot less fun.

 **(8:35 pm):** _I got your email, miss thesaurus_

Clarke just stared at her phone for a second, hoping Lexa would say something to make her forget the loneliness yawning in front of her. She scrolled absentmindedly through her older texts with Lexa.

 **(8:35 pm):** _Ugh and I’m still craving ginger snaps and apple cider_

 **(8:36 pm):** _It’s so seasonally appropriate_

 **(8:36 pm):** _And I’m so bored_

 **Lexa (8:36 pm):** _You are in a tutoring session, correct?_

 **(8:37 pm):** _Ya but there’s only like one kid here_

 **(8:37 pm):** _No one needs o chem help on a Monday apparently_

 **(8:37 pm):** _But just wait until two days before a test_

 **(8:38 pm):** _The place’ll be packed_

 **Lexa (8:38 pm):** _That explains how you were able to read my email so quickly. I had assumed that you would not see it until late tonight. Do you have any thoughts?_

 **(8:39 pm):** _Not yet_

 **(8:39 pm):** _I need to look at the schedule_

 **(8:39 pm):** _I should probably talk to the rest of the staff too_

 **(8:39 pm):** _Groan_

Clarke stared at her phone for a solid five minutes, waiting for Lexa to say something. Was this a little bit sad? Yes. Did she have homework she should be working on? Yes. Did she pick her head up? No. Finally a text from Lexa popped up.

 **Lexa (8:45 pm):** _Look outside._

Clarke frowned at her phone. What? She looked around the chemistry room, which of course had no windows, located as it was in the bowels of the science building.

 **(8:45 pm):** _?_

 **Lexa (8:45 pm):** _Outside the door of your room._

 **Lexa (8:46 pm):** _Proper explanations do tend to help achieve effective communication, don’t they?_

Clarke had only typed the words ‘first of all’ into her phone when she opened the door. A plastic bag was waiting for her on the other side of the door, just sitting on the ground. She paused for a second, still holding her phone, just frowning gently at the bag. Was this what Lexa had wanted her to see? Why?

She left her text half-finished and opened the bag, gasping when she saw what appeared to be a full plate of homemade ginger snaps and a half-gallon jug of apple cider. Before she did anything else, she stuffed one of the cookies in her mouth, her eyes widening as she realized that it not only had chunks of apple in it, but enough ginger to make her tongue tingle.

 **(8:48 pm):** _WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU??_

 **Lexa (8:50 pm):** _I apologize if I have offended you. I should have declared my intentions more clearly._

 **(8:50 pm):** _No you idiot!_

 **(8:51 pm):** _Get ya butt over here!_

 **(8:51 pm):** _There’s no way I’m eating all of these by myself!_

 **(8:51 pm):** _OH MY GOD THERE ARE CHOCOLATE CHIPS IN SOME OF THEM_

Clarke could hear the bling of an incoming text right as she sent her last message and she looked up to see Lexa walking around the corner, her comfortable plaid flannel and jeans clashing with her rigidly blank face.

“Clarke.”

“Lexa, did you seriously bring me these?!” She brandished one of the cookies at Lexa, who, in a shocking display of weakness, blinked slightly.

“I did.”

“Just a quick warning: I’m going to hug you now.”

Clarke narrowed her eyes and approached Lexa, watching for a sign that Lexa was uncomfortable with physical intimacy. Lexa’s only reaction was a visible gulp as Clarke wrapped her arms around Lexa’s shoulders, crossed her arms behind Lexa’s back, and squeezed tightly.

“Seriously Lexa, this is the best thing anyone’s ever done for me, and you have earned my undying gratitude.”

“This is not the best thing anyone’s ever done for you, you are exaggerating.”

Clarke pulled back to beam at Lexa. Lexa’s flannel was so soft, and her hair was brushing Clarke’s arms, and despite her flat tone of voice, there was the hint of a smile at the edges of her lips.

“I am not at all exaggerating, I can’t believe you would accuse me of something like that. Hey, by the way, what are you doing right now?”

Clarke let her arms fall from Lexa’s shoulders, but didn’t move her eyes from Lexa’s lips as they uncharacteristically stumbled over Lexa’s words.

“I . . . well, I was editing some articles, but I had the cookies, and no one else in the office wanted the cookies, and you mentioned that you would appreciate ginger snaps, so I thought —”

Lexa had brought her cookies! Lexa had thought of her! Clarke knew rationally that the act of bringing cookies didn’t guarantee good moral character, but deep in her soul, she could feel her distrust of Lexa fading.

“You want to keep me company for a bit? I wasn’t kidding about being bored out of my skull.”

Lexa looked dubiously at the metal door to the chemistry room. “Am I allowed? I wouldn’t be distracting from the . . . tutoring?”

Clarke shrugged. “There’s literally one person here doing homework with four tutors. You won’t be interrupting anything.”

Lexa nodded decisively, gesturing for Clarke to precede her into the room. “Then I shall. We can get started on a tentative schedule for uploading articles, which may require some retooling of the general _Grounds_ schedule, and hopefully we can start outlining some procedures for lines of communication between our two organizations, such as in the case of time-sensitive articles. If we have time, we can address what support your organization will need from the _Grounds_ , either in terms of staff or equipment, and where in the schedule we could work in your organization’s needs.” Clarke practically skipped into the room, pulling a desk up next to hers for Lexa.

“Hold up, let me bullet point this real quick.”

Lexa paused as Clarke slid into her seat and started rapid-fire typing in an email draft, the clicking as she pounded the keys loud in the quiet room.

“Where do you typically go in between classes, Clarke? We can stay in communication via text messages, of course, but I find it convenient to spend the majority of my free time in the _Grounds_ office, to ensure that I can be easily reached if there are any questions for me. It might make future communication easier if you spent your time in the _Grounds_ office as well.”

Clarke winced. She liked the idea of hanging out in the _Grounds_ office with Lexa, but the _Grounds_ office also sounded like a place where she might bump into the _Grounds_ staff, and she liked the sound of that quite a bit less.

“I don’t know, Lexa, the rest of your staff might not be okay with that.”

Lexa’s face went from soft and expressionless to hard and expressionless. “You are a member of the _Grounds_ now, Clarke. If anyone else on staff makes you uncomfortable in any way, they will answer to me.”

Clarke looked down. Oh. Okay. “Well . . . in that case, maybe I’ll stop by.”

She looked up just in time to catch the tail end of Lexa’s smile before it was carefully hidden. “I look forward to it.” Clarke let a smile grow across her face, hoping to crack an answering smile out of Lexa, but Lexa just looked down and pulled her computer out of her messenger bag. “Anyway, would you like to start with the schedule?”

Clarke would be willing to bet that this would be the least tedious meeting she’d ever been in. Well, least tedious meeting that didn’t end in a fistfight, anyway.

***

Clarke woke up to a loud, repetitive banging sound. She checked the clock, because the kind of groggy she was feeling was not the normal morning hatred of the world. 12:43. Either she had slept for _way_ too long, or it was still the middle of the night. Judging by the complete darkness of her room, it wasn’t the afternoon, so that just left . . . a really loud banging noise. Was someone banging on her door? At one in the morning?

The banging continued, growing in intensity, filling Clarke with paralyzing fear. Clarke’s panicked thoughts flashed to every time this weekend that she’d been physically attacked. What should she do? Should she call the police? Would they get here in time?

Her breathing was starting to get out of control as the thumping sound just went on and on and on. She gritted her teeth and took a long, deep breath, forcing the fear away. She didn’t have the flash drive, if someone were going to break into the house they wouldn’t knock on the door, and no matter what happened, it probably wouldn’t hurt as much as getting hit by a motorcycle.

She threw herself out of bed, jammed her feet in some slippers, and marched to the door, hoping to channel enough inner rage to intimidate the person at the door in spite of her broken arm.

“What?!” Clarke snapped at the person at the door before the door was even entirely open.

It was Lexa. Clarke took a step backward at the look on Lexa’s face, all traces of grogginess suddenly gone.

“Well played, Clarke, well played.” Lexa’s face gave away nothing, but her fists were clenched. “I trust you have a reason for destroying our organization after you believed that you had what you needed? Because unless I am missing something, you have nothing to gain from this besides the joy of destruction.”

“Wh-what?”

“I can assure you, this will prove to be a mistake. Your organization will not last long after deliberately and systematically alienating every single person who considered helping you. I have to give you credit for your dedication to your lies, though —”

“Lexa!” Lexa stopped mid-rant, her face still a frozen mask of rage. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“There’s no one here, Clarke!” It was the first time Clarke had heard Lexa raise her voice, and although the anger in her voice didn’t faze Clarke, the way Lexa’s voice cracked at the end caught in Clarke’s throat. “No one to deceive. You’ve already made your move, at least have the courage to admit what you’ve done. I always knew you could be a manipulative liar, but I never thought you would be a coward.”

Lexa spat the last words at her and Clarke gritted her teeth to control her pain and anger.

“Lexa, please,” she choked, not sure if she wanted to cry or punch Lexa. There was no visible change in Lexa’s expression, but the woman at least gave Clarke a moment of silence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t done anything to hurt you. Just tell me what you’re talking about so I can help.”

The only movement Clarke could see was the muscles in Lexa’s jaw clenching once, twice, while she regarded Clarke coldly. Clarke started trembling in the silence, either from the cold or the unexpected pain of calm, respectful Lexa accusing her of some kind of betrayal.

“Help me understand, Clarke. What was the point?” Clarke’s throat was too thick to respond, even if she’d known what to say. Lexa’s hands unclenched and her eyes ruined her stoic demeanor, hurt and vulnerable and honest to their center. She tilted her head up, as if offering her jugular for Clarke to finish whatever job she’d started.

Clarke took a slow step towards Lexa, itching to touch her, to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her, or possibly just grab her hand and press the truth into her. “Please, Lexa. You’re scaring me.”

Lexa blew out a short breath, but didn’t look away from Clarke.

“Perhaps you can think of some other explanation for why I received an email an hour ago from the Vice President of Student Life summoning me to a disciplinary hearing regarding the results of an investigation into an illegal file that the administration found on our computers due to an anonymous tip. Both Anya and I are facing expulsion.”


	10. Don't You Get It?

Lexa knew it was stupid. Not her anger — it was perfectly logical for her to be angry in the face of such a direct attack — but the aching feeling of betrayal. Anger was a sign that things were not going as Lexa designed and it existed to be harnessed in pursuit of her goals.

Showing up at Clarke’s house in the middle of the night was not likely to advance any of Lexa’s goals, however, and she knew it. Clarke’s motivations were no longer important now that her cards were on the table. The feelings and opinions that Lexa ought to be worrying about were those of the committee that would be deciding her and Anya’s fate, and by extension the fate of the _Grounds_.

But here she was. The hurt that she had no right to feel just became more confusing as she watched Clarke’s face crumple. Lexa was expecting a confident victory smirk on Clarke’s lips, or for Clarke to accept responsibility with an unapologetic shrug, or at the very worst for Clarke to slam the door and call the police.

She wanted to get it over with, to let Clarke officially plunge the knife into her heart. Really, Lexa only had herself to blame. Clarke had been out to take advantage of the _Grounds_ all along, Lexa had known perfectly well that Clarke wasn’t a friend or . . . anything else, but Lexa had still gotten attached. Even now, all she wanted to do was to sit on Clarke’s couch and stare longingly at her from across the room, like a complete idiot.

“Shit, Lexa, that’s . . . that’s awful. Do you want to come inside?”

Lexa blinked suspiciously. It was like Clarke was reading her mind. She dropped her head in a tight nod and allowed Clarke to usher her into the living room, which was dominated by a large couch traversing two walls, connected at the corner so that it was functionally two couches smashed together at a right angle. It was covered in threadbare blankets — Lexa couldn’t tell if they were hand-knitted or just very old.

The walls were sparsely decorated: one picture of what Lexa assumed was Clarke’s family and one charcoal sketch of a dog. Clarke’s science textbooks, along with an open notebook with color-coordinated notes, were spread over the large metal trunk that served as a coffee table. Lexa noted the lack of television with a touch of satisfaction.

Clarke clicked on a standing lamp — the only other furniture in the room — and sank onto one edge of the couch. Lexa went ahead and fulfilled her own prophecy, sitting straight-backed on the opposite end of the couch and staring at Clarke.

“So . . . someone tipped off the administration about the file?” Clarke absentmindedly tangled herself up in one of the blankets on the couch, presumably since she was only wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top. Tendrils of her blonde hair were falling over the edge of her face, and Lexa looked away and swallowed to buy herself enough time to remember what Clarke had said.

“Clearly.”

“You think it was me.” Clarke sounded hurt, which really wasn’t at all fair, in Lexa’s opinion.

“Of course I thought it was you. You were the one who found it; you are the only one besides Anya and I who knew where it was.” Lexa hadn’t really expected to need to defend her reasoning for this simple induction.

“Oh, you thought . . . yeah, I suppose that makes sense. No, I wasn’t the only one who knew it was there.”

Lexa’s head raised in surprise, daring to hope despite herself. If she’d been as competent as she wanted to be, she wouldn’t even consider listening to Clarke’s obvious attempts to deflect suspicion. But she was weak.

“Is that so?”

“Did you really think I picked the lock on your office and found a hidden file on your computer by myself?” Lexa blinked. Surprisingly, she hadn’t thought of that. Clarke frowned down at the coffee table and continued. “Bellamy and Raven were there too, so they’re my current lead suspects. Raven’s not really able to walk, so we could probably cross her off the list, though.”

“So you’re blaming Bellamy. Convenient.”

Clarke slowly raised her head to face Lexa, an expression of dumbfounded irritation on her face.

“Yes, it is a bit convenient that Bellamy hated your guts, knew about the file, and had already broken into your office once before. Look, I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but —”

“Couldn’t all of those things be said about you, too? You knew about the file, you have broken into our offices before . . . this was your plan to use the file in the first place.”

“Okay, first of all, it wasn’t my — wait, you think I hate your guts?” Clarke’s impassioned tone suddenly dropped.

“Well . . .” Lexa nodded at Clarke’s arm, still in a sling. “Don’t you?”

“No!” Clarke moved to the couch near Lexa, leaning into her personal space. “I don’t hate the _Grounds_ and I definitely don’t hate you. You’re the only one who’s been willing to actually help me make this partnership work for both of our organizations, okay? I need you, Lexa.”

Lexa didn’t want to smile, didn’t want to let Clarke soothe her, but it was late at night and Clarke was very close and her hair was brushing Lexa’s arm.

“What about Wells?”

“Sorry?”

“He knew about the file. He had a copy.”

Clarke pulled back enough that her hair wasn’t touching Lexa’s arm and Lexa could breathe again.

“Wells wasn’t even there when . . . the first time. He didn’t know it was on your computer.”

“It wasn’t.”

“What?”

“I took it off. As soon as I dropped you off last night, I went straight back to the office and deleted the file.”

Clarke broke eye contact, looking straight ahead at the dog portrait on the far wall.

“Right, of course you did.” Lexa looked away from Clarke, out the front window of Clarke’s apartment, trying to pretend she was relieved that Clarke was at arm’s length again. “Wait, so why are you worried about this accusation, then?”

“They didn’t tell me that they’d received an accusation, they told me that they’d found a file.”

“Shit . . .” Clarke breathed. “So that means someone has to have physically walked into your office and uploaded the file to your computer?”

“Indeed.”

“Then that means we can catch them. We can see if anyone in the student life office saw them coming in, if they came during the day. I’ll corner Murphy, see if he picked the lock to get in at night.”

“Very well. Then I will talk to Wells.”

“Lexa, it wasn’t Wells!”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because . . . because he wouldn’t do something like this. Not after . . . I mean, I just gave him the . . .”

Clarke’s breath started to come shorter and Lexa gave up trying to preserve any sense of professionalism.

“Clarke, I know what he means to you. He cares about you, and the _Grounds_ hurt you. At the very least, he had a reason to consider doing something like this, and it's not like he has much to lose if our partnership fails.”

“You really think that? I suppose I can’t blame you for not knowing anything about us, but it still pisses me off that you keep making assumptions.” Lexa gulped. If Clarke went for her again like she had in the police station, Lexa was pretty sure her best bet would be to just cut her losses and literally run. “Don’t you get it? Wells wants to be a photographer, but unless he can get a decent job, his dad’s going to give him an internship at a law firm. You know Nathan Miller? No, of course you don’t: he’s a senior, and he’s going to be the first person in his family to graduate college. He’s paying for his tuition on scholarships, a part-time job, and frankly, we don’t ask too many questions about his personal life, because I’ve done the math and he still shouldn’t be able to pay his tuition. If he doesn’t get a job with his fine arts degree, he’s going to be paying his loans however he can, probably making whatever shady stuff he’s into now worse. Murphy is the name of the kid who helped us break into your offices, and he’s got two options after graduation: find a job in publishing or get a job as a truck driver. You can trust them — you can trust us — because you’re our only shot at making a name for ourselves.” Clarke sighed and put her head in her hands. “That’s the only reason this went as far as it did, because we’re all desperate to make this magazine work. None of them are going to sabotage that, no matter how much they hate you guys.”

Lexa wanted to touch Clarke, put a hand on her knee or shoulder to express her admiration. She didn’t, of course.

“And what will you do when it turns out that one of your people planted the file?”

Clarke didn’t hesitate. “Then I’ll tell the Vice President the truth, and everyone else will still get their magazine.”

Lexa closed her eyes for a brief second. Remember, brave for Clarke. “I apologize, Clarke.”

She opened her eyes to see Clarke’s eyebrows raised, an amused smile on her face. “Oh? For what?”

“I believe I called you a coward earlier. I was wrong for that.”

“Well, uh . . . thanks for apologizing. I know that doesn’t come easily for you.”

There was a second of awkward silence, which Lexa took as her cue to leave. She stood, using the last of her courage to face Clarke.

“I will speak with Wells tomorrow. Perhaps he will know who may have been involved. I hope that you will speak with Bellamy and Raven, as they will not likely speak to me. Good night.”

“Wait, Lexa, where are you going?”

Clarke stood up before Lexa could turn, the blanket that had been in her lap dangling from her hand.

“To my apartment, to sleep.”

“Lexa, it’s like one in the morning, and don’t you have soccer practice like outrageously early tomorrow? Well, today, technically.”

“Yes, I do. The sooner I get home, the sooner I can sleep.”

“So crash here!”

“What?”

“I mean, I’ve got a big couch, and a lot of blankets, and I’m a lot closer to campus, so I mean . . .”

“Yeah!” Lexa cleared her throat. That was embarrassing. “Um. That would be convenient, if that’s acceptable for you.”

“Great! Uh, the blankets are sort of . . . everywhere, and the pillows are there, so you should be good.”

Lexa nodded slowly. She would certainly have more than enough room on this massive couch.

“Do you mind if I finish up some genetics homework?” Clarke waved a hand at the textbooks and notes strewn across the makeshift coffee table. “I was going to wake up early and finish it this morning, but since I’m already up . . .”

“You don’t need to ask me for permission. This is your house.”

“So is that a yes or a ‘I’m too polite to say no’?”

“Of course you may do homework in your own house.”

“Seriously, Lexa, because if the light will make it hard for you to sleep, you can take my bed and I’ll crash on the couch, it’s no problem.”

Lexa was almost offended by the degree of hospitality Clarke was showing her. As if Lexa would ever allow Clarke to sleep on the couch.

“Clarke. Do your homework. I can guarantee you that I’ve slept through worse.”

“Okay, if you’re sure.” Clarke raised her hands in surrender and moved back to the opposite side of the couch, still not touching her notes. Lexa gathered up two of the threadbare gray blankets and a pillow, before encountering a difficulty.

She couldn’t sleep in jeans. Or, she could, but it would be uncomfortable. On the other hand, she really could not take her pants off in front of Clarke Griffin. This was bad. She stalled as long as possible, slowly unlacing her sturdy gray boots, removing her socks, draping her leather motorcycle jacket over the back of the couch, unbuttoning her red button-down shirt and throwing it by the pillow she was planning on using, taking her phone out of her pocket and slipping it under the pillow, but by the time she was down to just a tank top and jeans, Clarke still hadn’t left the room. She sighed and looked up, just in time to catch Clarke suddenly turning away and looking down at her notes, the slightest hint of red in her cheeks. Huh.

“Clarke,” Lexa started.

“Yeah?” Clarke answered, just a little quicker and louder than normal.

“Do you think I could have a second alone?”

“Uh . . . yeah! Of course, sure, yeah.”

Clarke stood up, waved her hands aimlessly for a second, and then left through the other door in the room. Lexa waited a beat, then quickly slid her jeans off and climbed under the blankets, never taking her eyes off the door through which Clarke had left.

“I’m done, whenever you need to come back.”

“Okay!” After a second, Clarke returned, awkwardly balancing an open laptop computer in one hand, which she dropped on the coffee table with a thump. “Just let me know if I’m bothering you.”

“Mm-hm.” Lexa threw her long-sleeve shirt over her head to block out the warm light of the lamp and Clarke’s computer.

It had been a long day, and Lexa fell asleep surrounded by the soft rustling of Clarke turning pages and the scratching of her pen on paper.

***

Lexa could see a peek of light from under her eyelashes when she woke, which was a bad sign, because at this point in the year, the sun should not be up at 6 in the morning. She checked her phone. 3:14.

When she slipped her shirt off of her face, she realized the problem: the lamp was still on. Clarke’s notes, textbook, and computer were still open on the table, but Clarke was leaning against the arm of the couch, eyes closed, breathing softly.

She was so beautiful, and Lexa allowed herself a moment of weakness to just imagine brushing Clarke’s hair away from her face or trailing her fingers over Clarke’s bare arms. Then she sighed. Clarke must be cold, she couldn’t sleep out here all night in only her pajamas. Besides, it went without saying that Lexa’s wild fantasies were never going to be anything but fantasies. No point wasting time on them.

“Clarke?” she whispered, to make sure Clarke was asleep. No response.

Part of Lexa, the stupid part, wanted to just throw a blanket over Clarke and allow herself the comfort of sleeping close to Clarke. She flipped her blanket back and struggled off of the warm couch, eyeing Clarke warily as she stood over her.

“Okay, let’s get you to bed,” she whispered, just in case Clarke was awake.

Kneeling down, she slowly slid her hands under Clarke’s knees and shoulders, lifting her off the couch as gently as possible. She held her breath when Clarke turned her head, but Clarke just pushed her forehead into the crook of Lexa’s neck and returned to her silent, peaceful breathing. Lexa slowly proceeded through the house, holding her breath each time she had to nudge a door open with her foot, but Clarke never stirred.

When she reached Clarke’s bedroom, she stopped for a second to admire the prints and posters covering the walls. Judging by the variety of artistic styles, Lexa would guess these were from friends or artistic inspirations — the only common theme she could see was that each piece of art made the room feel colorful and slightly larger than life. She stepped over some of Clarke’s sweaters to reach Clarke’s bed, which was just a queen-sized mattress and a box spring placed on the floor. Lexa frowned for a second, since that set-up could easily lead to mold or worse growing under the box spring, but it made it easier for her to slide the comforter back with her foot. The maneuver still required slightly more dexterity than Lexa was expecting, but she didn’t drop Clarke, so all was well that ended well. She laid Clarke on the bed and pulled the comforter over her.

She walked back to her nest on the couch, already missing the warmth of Clarke’s head on her shoulder.


	11. Courage Means Doing The Right Thing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long. in my defense, since my last update i've: been fired, driven 1500 miles across the Southwest, broken down in Flagstaff and had to abandon my car, and sat in the dallas fort worth airport at 5 in the morning. also in my defense, this chapter is like 12 thousand words.

A bling from her phone woke Lexa. She grumbled as she reached under her pillow for her phone, noting with irritation that it was still dark outside. It had been a long time since she’d wrecked her sleep schedule in the middle of the week like this.

**Anya Marina (5:46 am):** _In light of the incidents of the past few days, I had assumed that soccer practice would be cancelled, but I have not heard anything._

**Anya Marina (5:47 pm):** _I would have asked you in person, but you did not come home last night._

Lexa groaned and dropped her phone on the pillow in front of her face. Right, she’d forgotten to tell Anya where she was. At least three people on the soccer team were out with injuries from the fight Sunday, and Anya and she needed to be prepared for their disciplinary meeting today. Lexa had never cancelled a soccer practice in the two years that she’d been the captain, but she supposed that there would never be a better reason to cancel practice. At least, she sure hoped she would never have a better reason to cancel practice than this.

**(5:49 pm):** _My apologies. I made some poor choices last night, about which I will inform you later. Practice is indeed cancelled. Inform the team._

Lexa raised her head. Her first class wasn’t until 9, but she didn’t hold with sleeping in after she’d already woken up, no matter how little she wanted to leave the warmth of Clarke’s blankets. A good breakfast and perhaps a brisk run to replace soccer practice would wake her up.

She threw the blankets off her upper body before remembering that Clarke’s kitchen was only accessible by walking through Clarke’s bedroom, where Clarke was still sleeping, and that she didn’t have any clothes suitable for a run. Ugh.

Well, it wasn’t like one more terrible decision would make much of a dent at this point. Lexa set the alarm on her phone for 8:30 and rolled back over.

***

“Lexa. Lexa.”

Lexa grunted and pulled the shirt off of her eyes to reveal Clarke leaning over her, one hand hovering near Lexa’s shoulder and the other holding a plate of what looked and smelled like pancakes. A girl could get used to waking up like this.

“Oh, you’re up. It’s 8:15.”

Clarke told her the time with a tense look on her face. Lexa propped her head up on her elbow, enjoying the soft light coming through the blinds and the fact that she didn’t feel like complete crap.

“And?” Lexa prompted when Clarke kept waiting.

“Didn’t you have soccer practice or meditation or . . . I don’t know, swordfighting to do? I was sort of expecting you to be gone when I woke up.”

“So you were going to eat . . .” Lexa counted the pancakes on the plate. “Seven pancakes by yourself?” The pancakes were not small.

“Oh, no, I saw you were here and I figured you were already late to something important, so you’d like some pancakes for the road. Plus now I’ll get to eat pancakes for breakfast for a change.”

“When do you normally eat pancakes?”

Clarke shrugged. “Usually between the hours of one and three a.m.” She picked one of the pancakes up, folded it like a taco, and ate it whole. Her voice was muffled by the pancake. “Seriously, you have soccer practice, right?”

Lexa sat up, pulling the blankets around her waist, aware of Clarke’s proximity. She ran a hand through her hair, wincing at the snarls in it.

“I cancelled, what with . . . everything. My first class isn’t until nine, so yeah, I’ve got time for breakfast.”

“Great!” Clarke sat down on top of the blankets, her leg touching Lexa’s, and passed Lexa the plate. “Trust me, chocolate chip pancakes taste much less like despair when you eat them for breakfast.”

Lexa followed Clarke’s lead, grabbing a pancake with her hand taco-style, before the words ‘chocolate chip’ sunk in. She took a reasonable bite out of the pancake, wondering how she was going to get the melted chocolate off of her hand and why she wasn’t irritated when Clarke stuffed another entire pancake in her mouth.

“God, Lexa, I’ve never seen someone eat a chocolate chip pancake with less joy.”

On the ‘p’ in ‘chip’, Clarke threw her hands in front of her mouth to catch a few crumbs that came spilling out.

Lexa could feel a grin bubbling up, but went for the deadpan angle. “I thought your chocolate chip pancakes were mostly consumed in a state of despair in the dark of night.”

“Yeah, that’s why I always eat them then. Chocolate chip pancakes are the only thing that staves off crushing fear of the future and feelings of inadequacy.”

Clarke was smiling, but it didn’t sound like a joke.

“I still prefer blueberry.”

Clarke opened her mouth to retort, but Lexa pulled a Clarke and jammed the rest of the pancake she was holding into her mouth at once and Clarke’s retort turned into laughter.

Yeah. A girl could get used to this.

***

The irrational good mood generated by Clarke’s presence didn’t last long in her absence, however. Lexa had only herself to blame for allowing herself to be at the mercy of mercurial emotion, especially when it came to Clarke Griffin. By the time Lexa was walking into her first class, the reality of the situation had returned: she had about ten hours to find a reasonable explanation for how an illegal file had found its way to the _Grounds’_ computer, or else she and Anya were expelled, at a minimum. The idea of relying on Clarke, which had been so comforting last night, crumbled in the light of day. This was Lexa’s responsibility.

She didn’t normally bring her computer into class — she preferred to take notes on a legal pad to minimize distractions — but time was of the essence today. It helped that she was two weeks ahead on the readings for this class and actually liked David Hume.

It was easy enough to convince the professor that she was taking notes by nodding and making eye contact with her. Professor Winchester was a laissez-faire professor, by Lexa’s estimation, so she doubted the woman would care anyway, but Lexa had a reputation to uphold.

She’d sent an email to Wells Jaha informing him that she would be meeting him today about a matter that would decide the future of his organization and answered all eleven messages related to the layout meeting tonight by the time Winchester moved into a group discussion. While Lexa enjoyed the round-table style of upper-level classes like this, her classmates’ opinions were not always the most stimulating.

***

To: Vice President of Student Life ([swallace@um.edu](mailto:swallace@um.edu))

Re: Disciplinary Hearing

I will be in attendance. We would like to ensure that we collect any relevant information relating to the matter in question, so as to help resolve this matter expediently. To that end, would it be possible to delay the meeting until tonight? The weekly _Grounds_ layout meeting is tonight, beginning at 6:00, so if it would be possible to schedule this hearing for 7:00, we would be more able to

***

“Alexandria’s uncharacteristically quiet. You tend to see Hume as being more complex than simply a skeptic par excellence, so do you agree with them that the essay on the skeptic is Hume’s genuine opinion?”

Lexa blinked up from her email embarrassingly slowly, her attention caught more by everyone going silent than the professor calling her name. God, did she really have it so bad for Clarke Griffin that she couldn’t even remember her own name any more? “Of course not. The essay on the stoic is Hume’s genuine opinion.”

“Really?” The rest of the class looked as surprised as the professor. “Explain.”

“I’m sure Hume agrees to a degree with all of the essays, but his description of the stoic precisely matches his metaphysical conclusions and his ethical writings, in a way that none of the other essays do.”

“His ethical writings . . . you mean the ones we haven’t gotten to yet?” Winchester was a short African-American woman who had dyed the front chunk of her flyaway brown hair a bright pink.

Lexa shrugged. “I read ahead. And yes; Hume can’t put any faith in causality or God or even the continuity of his own mind, which matches the stoic’s central starting position that the universe is uncertain. But Hume still cares about living a worthwhile life — I mean, he says that everyone still cares about living their life, no matter how much of a skeptic they claim to be, that’s the backgammon point. So given Hume’s skepticism, the only thing he could possibly ground any sort of ethics in would be your choices. The only thing that you are responsible for is your own choices, your own actions. Nothing else is relevant.”

Winchester chuckled. “A budding stoic, I see. Well, if you’re interested, I recommend Marcus Aurelius, although he might be a little too . . . conversational for you.”

Lexa dutifully bookmarked the recommendation on her laptop, but decided that she’d better finish her email later, just to make sure that Winchester didn’t think she was tuning out the class.

As was her habit, she hung around after class to talk with Winchester. Lexa didn’t have class for half an hour, and even though she was pretty sure that Winchester was supposed to be teaching another class in ten minutes, they always ended up talking for fifteen minutes or so. Lexa didn’t approve of Winchester’s blasé attitude about punctuality, but the woman was brilliant and shared Lexa’s dry wit.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever taught a student who was a stoic.”

“I doubt that you are teaching one now. All I said was that Hume’s essay on the stoic most closely matches his metaphysical and ethical commitments. Even if I agreed, I’m not interested in the same sorts of things Hume is.”

Winchester picked up her handmade coffee mug and tucked her papers haphazardly under one arm, fixing Lexa with a perceptive look.

“No, you’re not. I remember your paper from philosophy of gender — you’re interested in action. Your other major is political science, right?”

“History. Our political science department is weak, and I can build the skills I would need to go into politics just as easily by studying history.”

“History and philosophy, and planning to go into politics,” Winchester chuckled, although Lexa didn’t see anything funny. “Yeah, you should definitely read Marcus Aurelius.”

“I’m not entirely sure what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying that you remind me of an ancient Roman statesman and emperor, which is something I’m pretty sure I’ve never said before.”

“Well, I don’t think that the literally patriarchal Roman system of politics is something to which I should aspire.”

Winchester covered her mouth with her hand as she laughed. “That’s my girl. I’d vote for you, which is something else I don’t think I’ve ever said before.”

A tall, dark-haired young man walked past the door, then reappeared and paused awkwardly outside the door. Lexa nodded at Wells to let him know that she was finishing up.

“Thank you, professor, that means a lot to me. I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I have to go.”

“Things to do, I understand. Remember me when you’re famous and powerful!” The last words were shouted after Lexa after she had already stepped out into the hallway with Wells.

“Wells Jaha.”

“You said that you needed to speak with me urgently? Is it about Clarke?”

“Clarke? No, why would —” Lexa shook her head. “It is about the file. Perhaps we could find somewhere private to speak?”

Wells blinked around the nearly-empty hall. “That depends. Is this a plot to get me alone and torture me until I give it to you?”

Lexa sighed. “No. But I would like to talk about something that neither of us would like to be public knowledge. Follow me.”

Lexa headed for the history department study room, which was always deserted. For some reason, there were always people in the philosophy department study room, inevitably arguing about something Lexa found tedious and irrelevant.

“So tell me, Wells Jaha,” Lexa said as she closed the door behind them. “What were you thinking was going to happen next year?”

“I . . . beg your pardon?”

“For your organization — the _Delinquents_ — what were your plans for next year? I assume you will be graduating, were you just going to let them fend for themselves?”

“Uh . . . I’m not graduating until next year. I’m doing five years, since I’m triple majoring and all.”

“Triple majoring? Impressive.” Lexa didn’t care. “Then you have good reason to want to preserve the _Delinquents_.”

“Yes . . .” Wells narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this.”

“Does your interest in the future of the _Delinquents_ outweigh your friendship with Clarke, I wonder?”

“No. Clarke comes first.” Wells crossed his arms, leaning against the door. “What are you trying to ask me?”

“Then I suppose the only question left is whether or not you felt that the _Grounds_ deserved to be punished for what happened to Clarke.”

Wells stood up straight, arms falling to his sides. “Wait. Did something happen?”

“The administration discovered a copy of the financial report on our computers, thanks to an anonymous tip. Since I deleted the copy that your organization discovered, the only course of events that fits the facts involves an individual uploading a copy of the file to our computers and then tipping off the administration.”

“It wasn’t Clarke. She cares way too much about this partnership to screw it up with something stupid like this.”

Wells was missing the point. “So Clarke has assured me. I am not here to ask your opinion on Clarke’s innocence.”

“Oh. Right. You’re accusing me.”

“Currently, there are only three people with access to a copy of the file: you, me, and Clarke. Either someone comes forward to claim ownership of the file, or else I and my managing editor face expulsion, and do not doubt that the partnership between our organizations would end with that outcome.”

“Shit.” Wells covered his eyes with his hand and stayed like that for several long seconds. Lexa waited. “Okay. Yeah. It was me.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows. Wells’ resigned tone was not what she would consider appropriate for someone admitting to a crime.

“Indeed?”

“Yeah, sure, I did it because . . .” he waved a hand and Lexa frowned. His body language was that of someone making up a story on the spot. “I don’t know, I was pissed at you guys for beating up Clarke. So I snuck in last night and downloaded the file onto your computer. I’ve got the flash drive, that should be enough evidence for the administration, right?”

“Wait, so you did plant the file and tip off the administration?”

“No, but like you said, someone has to claim ownership. I’m the only one who can take the blame without everything falling apart for all of us.”

It clicked. “You’re sacrificing yourself for Clarke.”

He shrugged. “You know who my dad is. I might get expelled, but there’s plenty of other schools out there I can go to, it’s not that big of a deal.”

Lexa crossed her arms. “So your plan is we just lie through our teeth and hope the original saboteur doesn’t show up?”

Wells shrugged. “What are they going to do? Walk in and say ‘no, he didn’t illegally steal this file and try to blame the newspaper, _I_ did’? Either way, we win. Look, this is the only option we’ve got, and you know it.”

Lexa considered it. On the one hand, tossing Wells to the wolves didn’t sit right with her, not to mention that there was still someone out there with a copy of the file and reason to want to hurt the _Grounds_. On the other hand, she had a meeting in about eight hours where someone was going to have to get expelled, and Wells was right that his expulsion would have by far the least collateral damage.

“Clarke won’t like it.” Wells opened his mouth and Lexa immediately put a hand up to stop him. “And you’re going to tell her the truth.”

He closed his mouth. “Yeah. She’s not going to like it. Do you have a better idea?”

Lexa considered it. She could deny everything and try to drag out the disciplinary process to buy time, but that meant gambling that the administration couldn’t or wouldn’t expedite the process. All possible suspects were off the table right now, so unless someone had walked in front of a security camera in front of the _Grounds_ office at two in the morning holding a flash drive or had asked someone in the Student Life office for a key to the _Grounds_ office ‘for revenge purposes’, she wouldn’t have anything to offer the administration even if she could buy time. There really wasn’t a better option.

“No. I don’t.”

“Okay.” Wells took a deep breath. “When’s your meeting?”

“Seven.”

“I’ll meet you outside the _Grounds_ office ten minutes before seven.” Lexa nodded and turned to go, but Wells stepped in front of her. “And Lexa? You’d better do right by Clarke or we’re going to have words.”

“It’s a deal.”

***

“Okay, write it down.”

Lexa pointed to the whiteboard that covered a full wall of the _Grounds_ office, where Anya printed ‘new exhibit at art museum’.

“Tristan, Luna, you two will have to decide whether we should run that under Local or Arts & Entertainment.”

Tristan, a quiet, broad-shouldered sophomore with a green cable-knit sweater, shrugged as he looked over at Luna.

“I think we’ve got enough in Local for this week. It’s more arts than local anyway.”

Luna nodded imperceptibly from behind her enormous sunglasses. No one knew how Luna could somehow manage to be hungover on a Tuesday at 6 in the evening, but somehow she still managed it at least once a month. Lexa remembered the one class she’d had with Luna — a memorable classical mythology class that Luna had been late to without fail, sipping from a metal water bottle filled with something that was distinctly not water. Luna told Lexa in confidence that she’d ended up running into the professor of that class at a bar, where she’d flirted with his girlfriend, accidentally started a bar fight, and spent a night in a drunk cell with him. It was widely accepted as fact that Luna had had sex on the _Grounds_ table, although no one could agree on the precise details of the story and no one had ever had the guts to ask Luna to confirm it.

“Any other story ideas?” Lexa ran her eyes over the room. The whiteboard on the wall behind Lexa was nearly covered with short sentences in Anya’s precise handwriting. Some of the editors were casting glances at the computers they were sitting at, clearly ready to get to work. Lexa ended on Clarke, sitting to her right, who had been following the meeting closely, typing down some notes on her computer one-handed. Lexa made a mental note to share some of the most colorful Luna stories with Clarke — she’d be sure to appreciate them.

“I’ve got one for campus.” One of the copyeditors, a short brunette named Echo, spoke up tentatively. “One of my friends told me that a girl in our dorm committed suicide last night.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows. A few of the editors muttered condolences.

“We don’t usually print anything about suicides, out of respect.” Lexa tried to let her down gently.

Echo looked down. “Oh. I’d talked to my RA about it and they’d said that the university didn’t want any of us talking about it. I just wasn’t sure if we were going to go with that.”

“The university didn’t want you talking about it? Why?” Lexa shared a glance with Anya, who looked equally interested.

Echo shrugged. “I don’t know. My RA said that the family was being weird about it, maybe? I can ask her.”

“Let’s put it on the board. Campus, this is yours,” Lexa nodded to Lincoln, Indra’s dependable, if inexperienced, co-campus news editor. “But make sure to be careful, copy Anya on any correspondence, and record any interviews.”

Lexa paused for a second, noting the way Clarke had been typing throughout that whole conversation. Once silence had fallen, Lexa continued.

“As you may have noticed, we have a guest today. Clarke Griffin, meet the _Grounds_ staff. Do you want to introduce yourself, and explain why you’re here?”

“Uh, yeah!” Clarke stood and Lexa watched her shoulders straighten and her chin raise. “Good evening everyone, my name is Clarke Griffin. I’m a senior, double majoring in biology and art, and I’m also the editor in chief of the _Delinquents_ art magazine.” Clarke ignored the slight murmuring at that last sentence. “The reason I’m here is that I’m going to be the new online editor for the _Grounds_. My organization has built a new, fully functional website for the _Grounds_ that we’ll be unveiling later this week at the same time that the print edition is distributed. We’ll also be adding a facebook and twitter account that will be regularly updated with articles and updates. Lexa will explain in more detail how this will change your responsibilities, but the only things I’ll need from you are recommendations from each of you for the articles for each week that you think are the most worthy to be featured. Also, when the sites go live, all of you should share them any way you can. I’m going to write my email address on the board, and some time tonight, I need each of you to email me which article from your section you’d like featured on the new facebook page this week.”

As Clarke went to the board, Lexa took over. “As you know, this has been in the works for a while. The website and social media presence are intended to reach a different audience than our print audience, including alumni and parents of students. We’ve been researching, writing, and printing stories that everyone on campus needs to know about for the last two years, but you know as well as I do that most students think of us as a free crossword puzzle each week. No more. Students will be reading our articles on their phones, alumni will be reading our articles and writing annoying, out-of-touch comments on them, and the university administration will check our website each morning to see what sorts of things they’ll be getting angry phone calls about. That’s the plan, people; make it happen.”

Bedlam ensued. Half of the staff started shouting questions at Lexa, the other half shouted questions at the first half, and several people left their chairs to approach Lexa. Lexa raised her hand, frowning, and the room quieted.

“The only thing you will need to do differently tonight is email Clarke your chosen article. Tomorrow we’ll have a required training session which will also be dedicated to answering any questions you may have. Tonight, however, I was hoping to be home before midnight, so don’t talk to me until your page is done.”

Lexa sat down and the office returned to the normal vigorous buzz of chatter. Clarke sat down next to her and leaned over.

“That was impressive. I wish I could get a whole room of people to shut up like that.”

Lexa glanced at Clarke out of the corner of her eye. Clarke had a smile on her lips, but kept her eyes on her computer, and instead of replying, Lexa just followed the strands of hair escaping Clarke’s braid and drooping over her brow. Clarke waited a second, and then turned to make eye contact while Lexa’s mouth was still slightly open.

“Lexa, could I have a word real quick?” Anya’s voice came from the back room. Saved by her managing editor.

“Yeah?”

Lexa stepped into the small editor’s office, and Anya looked up from the single computer where she was hopefully putting together the puzzles page of the paper. On the days when Anya was too busy to put the page together, Lexa had to do it, and even though Lexa could finish a page much faster than her sluggish editors, it was still twenty minutes she could be spending sleeping.

“Sooo . . . Lexa . . .” a slow, wicked smile spread over Anya’s face. For someone who’d just referred to her staff as sluggish, Lexa caught on embarrassingly slowly. Lexa. Anya had called her Lexa, not Alexandria, and Lexa had just automatically responded. How did she . . . “When did hot blonde art magazine chick out there start giving you cute nicknames?”

Lexa shut the door to the office much faster than she should have if she wanted to maintain her nonchalant air.

“She was drunk when we met.” Lexa chose her words as carefully as possible. “She called me Lexa. The name . . . stuck.”

“Oh, the name stuck . . .” Anya nodded slowly, her whole body bobbing with her head. “Sort of like that time the freshman, what’s his name . . . Arnold or something, called you Alex once by accident and you fired him?”

It was uncomfortably warm. Lexa thought she should maybe take her long-sleeve flannel off.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to imply.”

The wicked smile was back on Anya’s face. “Oh, nothing. Just try to remember not to call her ‘mistress Clarke’ until you’re alone.”

“Anya!” The warmth travelled up Lexa’s neck, made worse by the vivid images her unruly brain was presenting. “Our relationship is purely professional.”

“Mm-hm, sure.” Anya’s smile softened. “Seriously, it’s nice to see you happy, you little slut, you.”

“I’m going to leave now.” Lexa was already opening the door, heat still flushing her cheeks.

“Go get ‘em, tiger!” Lexa closed the door quickly before Anya could yell anything else embarrassing to fuel the amused looks her editors were shooting her.

Clarke wasn’t in her seat, which was probably a good thing, since the end of the table was flush with the wall of the back office, and Clarke would’ve been hard-pressed not to hear Anya’s crass comments.

Speaking of Clarke . . . “Lexa. A word.”

Lexa blinked up at the quiet words that sliced through the buzz of the office. Clarke stood in the outer door, arms crossed, her face as sharp as her words. Wells stood behind her, an apologetic grimace on his face.

“Now.” Several editors looked up in astonishment at Clarke’s tone, and Lexa gritted her teeth as she stalked out of the office. Between the ‘Lexa’ debacle and this, she was going to have to crack some heads to keep her reputation intact.

Lexa closed the door to the office, avoiding Clarke’s eyes.

“I take it Wells failed to inform you of his intentions until now?” She glared at Wells, who confirmed her suspicions by rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding her eyes. Little bitch.

“‘His intentions’? Oh, is that what you’re going with?” Clarke raised her eyebrows aggressively and stepped into Lexa’s space.

“That . . . is a common term used to describe one’s choices, so I’m not sure what you’re — oh. You believe that I coerced Wells into accepting blame.” Lexa refused to allow her hurt to enter her voice.

Clarke put on a faux-shocked expression. “No, of course not, I thought that Wells was going to get himself expelled because he thought it would be fun. Nothing else to do on a Tuesday night, am I right?”

Clarke took another step into Lexa’s personal space, but Lexa had nothing to be afraid of this time.

“My understanding was that Wells intends to ensure that both of our organizations continue to exist, and he knows as well as you that there’s only one way for that to happen. A part of me thought you might respect his bravery.”

“Uh, guys . . .” They ignored Wells.

“He’s sure covering your ass, that’s for sure. Did you think I would respect you for bravely letting my best friend take the fall for you?”

Lexa’s mind went blank with rage. She clenched her fists with the effort of holding her tongue until she could speak with any semblance of control. It had been a long time since she’d been this angry, but that was no excuse for careless words.

“Tell me, Clarke the Lionheart, what sort of bravery you respect. I would not think myself brave for allowing my entire organization to be thrown into chaos, simply because I was too proud to accept someone’s help. And when the administration’s investigation turned up a blackmail email signed by Clarke Griffin, would you still respect my courage? Self-destruction is not bravery, Clarke. I will be a coward, and you will have an art magazine. ”

Lexa made no move towards Clarke, but Clarke still recoiled as if Lexa had struck her.

“Well, maybe you don’t see a problem with watching someone get expelled for something they didn’t do, but I won’t let this happen.”

“How will you stop it?” Lexa could understand Clarke’s horror, but there was nothing Clarke could do and they both knew it. Clarke clenched her jaw, but had no reply. “Our enemy is out there, Clarke, trying to destroy both of our organizations. The only way to stop this is to find them.”

“We can’t just stand here and let people throw their entire lives away like this, Lexa.”

“Neither can we stand by and allow the university to throw the lives of hundreds of students away. You’ve read the financial report, you know what will happen. Is the continued enrollment of Wells Jaha worth the academic careers of everyone who will be affected?”

Clarke didn’t answer, still staring Lexa down. This time, though, there was no crack in Lexa’s will for Clarke to find.

“Just promise me one thing, Lexa.” Clarke’s shoulders slumped in defeat.

“That depends.”

“Print the damn report. Make sure everyone knows the truth.”

Lexa ached to trail her fingers over Clarke’s hand and lean into Clarke’s tired stance.

“If it’s the last thing I do at this university, I will print that report.”

***

“Ms. Forrester, this is a confidential meeting, so we will have to ask your friend to wait outside.”

“Ms. Wallace.” Lexa greeted the pantsuited woman without even the courtesy of a nod, taking in the whole room. The entire media subcommittee was here, including an unfamiliar person who Lexa decided must be the member of the board of trustees who was technically on the committee but had never shown up before. Lexa raised her head as she turned back to Shirley Wallace, deciding not to conceal the hint of satisfaction she took in being able to cause this much trouble. “I would like to introduce you to Wells Jaha. He is here because he has important information about the file that you found on our computer.”

There were two desks positioned in the front of the room in front of the half-circle of chairs occupied by the disciplinary committee, presumably intended for her and Anya. Lexa ignored them in favor of standing in the middle of the half-circle so that she was looking down on the committee members, who she noticed giving each other meaningful glances on hearing Wells’ last name. Good.

“I see.” Shirley did not look pleased, which meant that this meeting was off to a great start, as far as Lexa was concerned. “Please, have a seat.”

Lexa turned to Wells and nodded to the desk. Wells sat, looking intimidated by the array of administration members with stern faces, professional clothes, and legal pads. It was such an elementary control tactic and Wells was falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

Lexa turned back to Shirley, ignoring the rest of the committee. “My managing editor, Anya Marina, is supervising the layout of this week’s edition of the _Grounds_. I will ensure she is informed about the proceedings today.”

“Very well.” Shirley looked down briefly at the legal pad in front of her, then folded her hands in front of her and leaned forward, which failed to look intimidating given the height differential between her and Lexa. “It has come to the attention of the Media Subcommittee that a confidential file concerning the university’s finances is in the possession of the _Grounds_. This is an exploratory meeting to determine how and why the _Grounds_ staff acquired this file, as well as how many members of the _Grounds_ staff were involved. The results of this meeting will be forwarded to Judicial Affairs and will be made public in the event of a legal investigation. Does anyone have anything else to add?”

Shirley looked around at the other members of the committee, who remained silent. As Lexa had assumed, the only person who mattered here was Shirley — as vice president of student life, Shirley was also in charge of Judicial Affairs. Judge, jury, and executioner.

“Do you have any questions for us regarding the nature of this meeting?”

“No.” Lexa locked her hands behind her back.

“To be clear, possession of this document is not merely inappropriate for a student organization, but also illegal. If your organization is willing to cooperate, the university is willing to forego taking legal action; you and anyone who participated in acquiring the document would be required to sign a nondisclosure agreement — do you know what that is?”

Shirley broke off to look at Lexa, who nodded. She’d expected that: the university needed her quiet, not in jail, so a nondisclosure agreement was their best option. It helped that Shirley could present it as if it was a concession on the part of the university.

“Judicial Affairs would then handle the disciplinary proceedings, which could result in expulsion. Do you have any questions?”

Lexa shook her head, impatient to be done with the formalities.

“In that case, we can begin the exploratory session. Do you have anything you would like to share with us before we begin our questioning?”

“Yes, in fact I do.” Lexa kept her voice pleasant to match Shirley’s. “The _Grounds_ has currently been engaged in discussions with a group of students who intend to form an art publication for the university. Ms. Wallace, I know, is aware of this, although I’m not sure how much the rest of the media subcommittee knows, so I will summarize.

“The potential art publication offered to share our funding in exchange for designing and operating our website, a deal which I rejected when it was originally proposed. The art publication continued to press negotiations, however, which became tense. There were even physical altercations between members of our organizations. However, the leader of the art magazine convinced me that their organization was capable and trustworthy and I decided to accept their offer. Despite this, many in the art publication’s staff retain some animosity towards the _Grounds_.

“When I received your email, I immediately contacted the art publication’s leader, because I suspected this may have been the action of their organization or one of their members. With her help, we investigated members of the art publication that might have held a grudge against the _Grounds_. The results of our investigation are in front of you.”

Lexa stepped to the side and nodded to Wells. She knew he was dedicated to making this work, but she’d seen first-hand how bad of a liar he was, so she was just going to have to hope that he could keep it simple.

“When Lexa says that there was tension, she doesn’t mention that she broke my best friend’s arm.”

Lexa whipped around. That had been an accident and Wells knew — oh. She kept the glare on her face for appearance’s sake, but she relaxed just a bit. Maybe Wells was a better liar than she thought.

“So yes, I had been against joining up with the newspaper ever since Clarke showed up with a broken arm.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt you,” Shirley leaned forward. “By ‘Clarke’, are you referring to Clarke Griffin?”

“Yes, I am,” Wells answered. Lexa narrowed her eyes at Shirley, who was writing something on her legal pad for the first time. There was no reason for Clarke to be brought up in this meeting, and Lexa intended to keep it that way.

“As I was saying, I was against us having anything to do with the _Grounds_ after that, and then there was the fight —”

“By fight, do you mean the incident that occurred in the _Grounds_ office this weekend involving Clarke Griffin and some other members of your organization?” Shirley was still writing down notes.

“No, I mean the incident where Clarke was badly beaten by a group of people just outside of campus and had to be protected by the police.”

There was a rustling as the other members of the committee reacted. Shirley stopped writing notes.

“That incident was not brought to our attention. You believe the _Grounds_ to have been responsible?”

“Everyone knows it was them. This was just before Lexa officially agreed to work with us.”

“You have no proof of that,” Lexa glowered at him. It wasn’t hard to fake anger when she thought about how Clarke had sounded on the phone that night.

Wells snorted and ignored her. “Clarke was going to get hurt by these people — had already been hurt by them — and everyone could see it besides her. Someone had to do something.”

Shirley’s face didn’t give anything away. “So you did something.”

Wells shrugged. “I had the copy of that financial report and after what happened with Clarke and her dad, I knew it would get the _Grounds_ out of the picture for good. So I put the file on their computer.”

“Just to be clear: you are confessing to possessing the file and putting it on the _Grounds_ computer?” Shirley was frowning.

“Yes.” Wells was a little too firm for Lexa’s liking — she would have been suspicious if she were Shirley.

Indeed, suspicious she was. “In that case, why are you telling us now? Just to be clear, Wells, if someone is coercing you in any way, we can help you.”

“No one is coercing me. I . . .” he paused. Lexa didn’t even allow herself to clench her fists behind her back, willing Wells to find the words. “Clarke figured it out. She told me that I had to come clean. I told her I’d tell the truth if she would agree not to work with the _Grounds_ any more, but she refused.” Lexa had to give it to him, that did sound like Clarke. “So then she said . . . she said that she was going to take credit. She was going to say that she’d put the document on your computer, and get expelled, just so that the art publication would still exist.”

Lexa’s breath came shaky for a second imagining that. She took back everything she’d ever thought about Wells being a bad liar, because that story hit so close to home that it might as well have been true.

“I couldn’t let that happen,” Wells finished, looking down. “So here I am.”

Shirley leaned forward, a glint in her eyes that Lexa didn’t like. “You say that Clarke was going to take credit for it. From what you’ve said, however, we have no evidence that you did in fact have access to the document at all. Perhaps we should call Clarke to join this meeting? After all, we know that she had access to the document — this would be a serious breach of her nondisclosure agreement.”

Lexa’s jaw clenched involuntarily, and she was glad Shirley’s perceptive eyes were fixed on Wells.

“If you are looking for proof, I brought with me the copy of the file that I uploaded to the _Grounds_ computer.” Wells brought the flash drive out of his bag. “Would you like to examine it?”

Shirley sat back and pursed her lips. “Yes.”

Lexa took the drive from Wells and handed it over, peeking a glance at Shirley’s legal pad as she did. The largest words she could see were ‘Clarke Griffin’s involvement?’ with several bullet points underneath it. Lexa returned to standing at the center of the room, protective anger bubbling in her chest.

Shirley pulled out a tablet and plugged in the drive, checking it and sighing. “Well, then, I suppose we only have a few more questions for you both.”

***

Lexa waited outside the small English classroom, unable to hear more than a murmur of voices from the discussion happening inside.

“Was that okay?” Wells looked as nervous as she felt.

“Actually, yes. I was impressed by your story.”

He shrugged. “I just thought: what would happen if I actually had put that file on your computer? The first thing I thought of was that Clarke would kick my ass.”

Lexa smiled. “That’s exactly what would’ve happened.”

He shook his head. “She pretty much kicked my ass anyway, so it wasn’t like I was pressed for details, either.”

“It was good. You were good.”

“Thanks.”

They lapsed into silence for a second. Wells sat down against the wall, arms around his knees and his head leaned back to face Lexa. Lexa tried not to think about ‘Clarke Griffin’s involvement?’ in Shirley’s handwriting, but it just kept reappearing. What would Shirley have done if Clarke had taken credit for the report? Why was Shirley so interested in tying Clarke to this? And why was Lexa so worried about it?

“Wells?” She sat cross-legged next to Wells.

“Yeah?”

“Thank you. I don’t think I ever thanked you for doing this — it’s a noble thing to do.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

“I am aware. Nonetheless, you’ve earned my gratitude. Whatever happens, if you need any help or, I don’t know, a place to stay or anything, you only have to ask.”

“I think I’ll be okay. They won’t be able to do much to me without my father getting involved. Worst case scenario, I’ll get expelled, and I can always just transfer to another school, it’s not the end of the world. This might be my excuse to go somewhere with a good photography program, too.”

Lexa nodded. Wells knew what he was doing, he had a plan and a future — he’d be okay.

“Thank you, though,” Wells said after a pause. “You didn’t have to offer that, but you did anyway.”

Lexa shrugged. “I repay my debts. You don’t deserve for this to happen to you.”

“You’re a pretty decent person, Lexa, you know that?”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Wells Jaha.”

The door opened and the journalism professor, a younger, overly-enthusiastic blonde woman, poked her head out. “Wells? The committee would like to see you.”

“Alright.” Wells got to his feet heavily and followed her into the room.

After he’d gone, Lexa regretted not saying something to him. He deserved better than her just watching him walk in to face the music . . . well, too late now.

She took some deep breaths, feeling the shaky cold of adrenaline without anything to distract her. There was nothing wrong with nerves, she knew; the cold in her stomach that she found so unpleasant was responsible for increasing blood flow to her brain, giving her sharper reflexes and heightened senses. Now, though, she had no need for those benefits — her fight was done.

Wells was only gone for five minutes or so before he emerged, followed by the same journalism professor.

“The committee would like to see you, Lexa!”

As irritating as the professor was, Lexa couldn’t help but smile to hear her say ‘Lexa’. She supposed she could thank Wells for that.

“Wells, tell me later how it went.” The look she gave Wells should make it clear that when she said ‘later’ she meant ‘there better be an email waiting in my inbox when I get back to the office with all of the details.’

“Of course, Lexa.” Wells’ slight smile was the last thing she saw as she headed back into the room.

“The committee has reached a decision regarding your organization.”

Lexa raised her eyebrows, but refused to give them the satisfaction of asking, instead glancing around the room. The choice of an unused English classroom made it clear that this meeting had been called with enough urgency to need to book a room immediately, but not enough urgency to clear out a conference room in the administration building. Lexa wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or not.

“In light of the information provided by you and Wells Jaha, we will forego any disciplinary investigation into you or your organization, on the condition that you sign a nondisclosure agreement regarding the content of the document that was put on your computers.”

“No.” Lexa had no intention of backing down one iota at any point during this meeting. “I deleted that file off of our computers last night when I discovered it existed, and I am not comfortable taking any legal responsibility for its contents.”

Shirley looked surprised. “There is nothing for you to worry about if you haven’t read it, the nondisclosure agreement is simply a common legal option for resolving cases such as this. The university needs to ensure that it can trust everyone involved.”

“My understanding is that an agreement like that holds me legally responsible for ensuring that no information from that document reaches the public. Given that my job is as the editor in chief of a newspaper, I cannot in good conscience accept that responsibility. I understand that you are doing your job, but I am afraid that this is mine. I hope you understand.”

Shirley regarded her for a long moment. “Part of being a responsible editor in chief is handling legal ramifications — it’s your job to take responsibility for your organization.”

“I agree. I have always taken responsibility for my organization and I will continue to as long as I am editor in chief. My understanding is that this committee has concluded that the document is not in fact the responsibility of our organization. Unless you are suggesting that we had any knowledge of the document that was placed on our computer, I cannot commit my organization to legal responsibility for it.”

There was a long pause. “Ms. Forrester, I have trusted you to make professional choices as the editor in chief of the _Grounds_ ever since that . . . incident two years ago with the editor in chief before you. You have not let me down since. You must understand that this is a very serious matter affecting the entire university, so if I choose to trust you, I need your assurance that you will do your utmost diligence as the editor of the _Grounds_. Can I trust you?”

Lexa paused for a second. Even at the last, she was not willing to lie. “You can trust me to be true to the values of the _Grounds_ and that I will make the best choices for the _Grounds_ and this university.”

Shirley considered that. “I can respect that. I believe we’re done here, then. You’ll receive a formal email with the results of this meeting later this week.”

Lexa didn’t let herself slump with relief until she’d entirely exited the English building.

***

“12:32. That’s our fastest time yet.” Anya’s satisfaction fell flat in the face of Lexa’s exhaustion.

“One of these days I’m going to actually be out of here before midnight on a Tuesday, if I have to resort to physical violence.”

“Oh come on, this is nothing. Remember the second week last year? I didn’t even bother going to sleep that night.”

Lexa sighed and ran her hands jerkily through her frizzing hair, letting it settle in waves around her shoulders. “You’re right. I think I’m crashing after that meeting with Shirley.” Her hands were shaking from the aftereffects of the adrenaline that had fuelled her through her skirmish with the administration.

“Fair enough.” Anya started to leave the back room where Lexa was personally inspecting each page for the final time. She paused in the door. “By the way, good job.”

Lexa blinked up from the computer, spots in her eyes from the amount of time she’d spent staring at fine details on the screen. “What job did I do?”

“Yours: editor in chief. You fixed my mess, put out the paper while throwing down with Shirley, and you even got us a professional website. I still have my doubts about those art snobs, but I don’t have any doubts that you know what you’re doing.”

Lexa pressed stiff fingers to her aching temple. “That makes one of us. Don’t tell anyone I said that.”

Anya nodded once, still pausing in the door. “You’re supposed to have doubts. All that matters at the end of the day is whether you made the right decisions, and trust me, Lexa, you have. And I’m not just saying that because you’ve officially saved my ass more times than I’ve saved yours.”

Anya wouldn’t meet her eyes, shrugging and leaning on the door frame as she delivered the last sentence in a rush. Lexa’s tired heart flickered with a fierce affection for Anya.

“I do trust you, Anya. You know that.”

“Good.” Anya cleared her throat and left. Lexa sat in her chair, her eyes still resting on the spot where Anya had been, now taken up by posters on the section of the main office wall visible through the door.

Before Lexa was willing to release the spirit Anya had left and return to work, Anya’s voice echoed back from the main office.

“Hey, Lexa, you’ve got a visitor.”

Lexa shoved off of the floor, propelling her wheeled chair from the desk to the middle of the doorway so she could see into the main office.

“Clarke.” Clarke looked as tired as Lexa felt.

“Hey.”

“Anyway . . .” Anya drawled into the silence. “I’m going to go.” She backed out of the main office door without a single salacious comment, surprisingly enough.

There was a few seconds of silence after Anya’s exit where Lexa just looked at Clarke and Clarke just swayed on her feet, finally dropping into a chair at the main table. When she started talking, it seemed more like she was talking to herself than to Lexa.

“I’ve gotten article recommendations from most of the sections, but there are still a few missing that we’ll have to nag so that we’re ready for the reveal on Friday. I’ve uploaded one of the articles to see how it looks, and the design might need some tweaks. You should look at it and put together a list of changes you’d like and I’ll bring it back to the _Delinquents_ and see what we can do. We should be able to —”

“Clarke. It is past 12:30 in the morning. All of this can be dealt with tomorrow, when we are both less tired.”

Clarke leaned back in the chair and blew out a sigh, finally meeting Lexa’s eyes. “Wells called me. He talked to his dad, and he’s definitely going to get expelled.”

“Oh.” Wells hadn’t informed her, and Lexa had to admit she was a little annoyed at that. “He didn’t tell me that. Is the college going to take any legal action?”

“No.”

“That is good to hear.”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Wells is resilient — he will find another school where he will be successful.”

“How can you say that?” Clarke looked away and put a hand to her forehead. “I’m sorry, you’re right, it’s late, we don’t need to do this now.”

Lexa considered. There was clearly a conversation that needed to be had here, but she still had work to finish and she was tired and, for once, she didn’t want to argue with Clarke.

“Clarke, would you like to come look over the last few pages with me? Perhaps you will see something I miss.”

Clarke sighed, but pushed herself out of her seat. Lexa returned to her computer, and even though Clarke just stood behind her in silence, Lexa could feel herself relaxing. Clarke watched as Lexa fixed any last small mistakes on the front few pages, zooming in to check that headlines were spaced evenly and scanning articles for any last typos.

“Alright, last one.” Lexa broke the silence as she clicked to the front page. “This is the one I’d most like your help on. All of the other pages get checked at least three times before they’re printed: once by the layout editor who puts them together, once by Anya — the managing editor, and once by me — the editor in chief. Since I put the front page together, only Anya and I check it out, so it only gets checked twice. A third pair of eyes would ensure that we don’t miss anything.”

“Okay.” Clarke sounded distracted, but Lexa had to admit that she wasn’t really expecting Clarke to be much help. “What font is that?” Clarke pointed to the header at the top of the page with the _Grounds_ title printed in a clear serifed font.

“Uh . . . I’m not sure.” Lexa tried to click on it, but the header was an image, not a text box. “It’s been our title for ages, I don’t even know when we started using it. It was probably before we started using computers — someone drew it and then they scanned the image.”

“Do you think you could email it to me?” Clarke wasn’t even making eye contact when Lexa looked around in confusion, instead scanning the desk for something. “Actually, never mind, do you mind if I —” she held up a sheet of notebook paper and a pencil that she’d grabbed off of Lexa’s desk.

“Do I mind if you what?”

“Draw it,” Clarke said as if it should have been obvious. “For the website. It would be cool to keep the same typography, you know?”

Lexa didn’t know. “Uh, sure.”

Clarke sketched away at Lexa’s side while Lexa tried to focus on checking the front page. Anya had already agreed with her that the article about the fall play was their best bet for the front page; it wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was relevant to everyone on campus and there were a few shows left, so it would still be news by Friday. She checked the picture captions, always the trickiest, zooming back out every few seconds so Clarke could continue her sketch. Once Lexa was satisfied, she finally changed the date and issue numbers at the top of the page. It was her personal ritual to save those two for last.

“It looks good, did you see anything that needed fixing, Clarke?”

Clarke was still filling in the centers of the letters she’d sketched. “I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention.” She looked up and squinted at the page for a second. “Don’t you usually put the most interesting article on the top of the front page? I mean, no offense to the play, but I would’ve thought that the article about the board of trustees would be more relevant.”

“We sent a photographer to opening night, so we have a lot of good pictures and interviews. The pictures, presentation, and quality of the writing all go into deciding what to put on the front, not just what we think is interesting.”

“Isn’t the whole point to get people the information they need, not just what looks pretty?”

Lexa sighed. It was too late for her to be irritated. “Yes, it is. But different people are interested in different types of information, so the first thing to do is to get as many people as possible to pick up the newspaper. A dense article with no pictures about the board of trustees will mean that many people won’t pick up the paper, and then they’ll never find out about the play or the field hockey game on Saturday. This way, people might pick up the paper for the play and end up learning something about the board of trustees.”

“Huh. I guess that makes sense.”

“Really? That’s it?”

“What?” Clarke frowned at Lexa. The exhaustion and the tiny crease in Clarke’s forehead made this entire situation hilarious to Lexa.

“You didn’t want to question my definition of interesting? Challenge the idea that my goal should be getting people to pick up the paper? Perhaps insinuate that I am a monster who allows the ends to justify the means?”

Clarke’s frown deepened. “Look, I don’t know why you need to be so . . . wait.” Her frown turned to a raised eyebrow. “Are you . . . giving me shit?”

“I don’t know what that means, Clarke.”

“You’re screwing with me!” A slow smile spread over her face. “I didn’t think you were capable of sarcasm!”

“Clearly you don’t know much about me.” Lexa turned back to her computer, allowing herself a tiny smile, which grew wider when Clarke softly punched her on the shoulder.

“Okay, we get it, I’m a judgmental ass, so anyway, are we done with the issue or what?”

“I just have to email the files to our printer and then we will be good to go.”

Clarke hovered over her shoulder as she went through the time-worn ritual of sending the email to the printers, waiting the required twenty seconds for all of the attachments to load. She clicked ‘send’.

“That’s it? You’re done?”

“Were you expecting the printing press in the basement to suddenly roar to life as soon as I hit the ‘send’ button?”

Clarke blinked at her for a second with a thoughtful frown. “I’m not going to lie, I’m really liking sarcastic asshole Lexa. It’s a good look for you.”

Lexa looked back to her computer screen and tried to find some professional calm as she closed her email and shut the computer down. “You can take credit for that, I believe. With anyone else, I avoid the use of verbal irony.”

“Avoid the use of — okay, miss thesaurus, now are we done here?”

“Yes we are.” Lexa turned off the monitor on the computer and stood up.

“Great, I just need to scan this real quick.” Clarke waved her sketch of the _Grounds_ header.

“There’s a machine right outside the office to the right.”

Clarke walked off and Lexa started her nightly routine of throwing away empty chip containers and soda bottles, storing any remaining food in the dirty mini-fridge, turning off the monitors of the editors who still hadn’t learned to turn off their monitors before they left despite being reminded once a week, and leaving the rest of the paper detritus that a Tuesday layout meeting generated where it lay. For the first time in a long time, her routine was accompanied by the soft sounds of Clarke finishing her scan, gathering her computer, and taking the last brownie off of the plate that Lexa was taking to the trash.

“So, uh . . . I don’t mean to be rude . . .” Lexa was packing up the last of her stuff while Clarke waited by the door, Lexa’s coat hanging half off her shoulders. “But why are you here, Clarke?”

“For future reference, Lexa, most people would consider that question rude.” Clarke was smiling, though. “Yeah, sorry, I just . . . I walked here this morning and I just finished my homework fifteen minutes ago and uh . . .” now she looked away. “Wells called. I was wondering if I could get a ride home, maybe?”

Lexa hesitated in the doorway, the office lit only by a single lamp that she was about to turn off. “Of course, but I rode the motorcycle today, is that okay?”

“Yeah. That’ll be great.”

Lexa turned the last light off and joined Clarke outside the door, shutting the main door and locking it, tucking her keys into the pocket of her jacket.

“Hey, Lexa?” Lexa was about to start walking, but stopped, close enough to hear Clarke’s soft breathing. “Thanks. For driving me home. Again.”

Lexa didn’t know how to respond to Clarke’s sad smile. “Uh . . . yeah. Any time.”

They walked across the deserted, eerily quiet commons to the parking lot, Lexa already imagining falling into her bed. The one upside to late layout nights was that she slept like a brick as soon as her head hit the pillow.

“How do you do it?” Clarke broke the silence.

“Clarke, we’ve discussed the need for context —”

“How do you sleep?”

Lexa still wasn’t sure what Clarke was asking, but she was afraid.

“Elaborate.”

Clarke blew out a frustrated sigh. “I’ve only been trying to run a real organization for a week and I’ve been running on five hours of sleep and caffeine for the last four days. I don’t think I’ll even be able to sit down with Wells over coffee until two days from now, because I won’t have any time tomorrow. My friends are counting on me to make this magazine work, but I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and I’ve already gotten one person expelled. How do you do it?”

“Mostly, the same way you do. I just do it, no matter what. Like you said, there are people counting on me — counting on us — so I do what I have to do. I’ve been running the _Grounds_ for two and a half years now, and it gets easier with time.”

They were at Lexa’s motorcycle.

“What about now? What do I do now? My best friend’s getting . . . I just let my best friend get expelled for me. Am I supposed to just go home and get a good night’s sleep?”

“Yes. You have had a difficult day and it will do no one any good for you to be exhausted tomorrow.”

“Who cares?! Why would anyone listen to me after what I did?!”

Lexa pulled her helmets out of the side bags on her motorcycle, partly as an excuse to avoid Clarke’s eyes. She couldn’t hug Clarke, couldn’t step into Clarke’s space or touch her face like she wanted to, and oh she wanted to.

“Because you did the right thing.”

“I don’t care!! Does that help you sleep at night, Lexa? Because it sure doesn’t matter to me, not right now!”

Now Lexa looked up, because now Clarke had properly irritated her. “Of course it matters, and of course you care. You did the right thing for Wells and for your friends, and that is the difference between courage and cowardice.”

“Courage?” Clarke snorted, but accepted the helmet Lexa held out to her. “Yeah, I’m real courageous, courageously doing nothing while Wells gets expelled, that’s comforting, thanks Lexa.”

“Courage means doing the right thing even though it hurts — even if you are afraid. Being brave isn’t supposed to comfort you, it isn’t supposed to be fun, that’s the whole point, Clarke.” She stepped closer, making sure that Clarke was listening to her. “You deserve to sleep well, Clarke. You made the right choice.”

Clarke just stared back, the line of her jaw sharp against the backdrop of the lights of the commons. She put her helmet on and slumped onto the motorcycle, sitting sidesaddle facing past Lexa.

“Great. Won’t help me much tonight, though.” Clarke’s face wasn’t visible behind her helmet.

Lexa put on her own helmet to avoid touching Clarke. She didn’t know how she kept finding herself alone with Clarke late at night, but it was beginning to test her self-control.

“There’s . . . um, there’s somewhere I go. When I don’t want to sleep.” Lexa threw her leg over the motorcycle so that she wouldn’t have to see Clarke’s reaction. “I can take you there if you’d like.”

Clarke shifted behind her and she waited nervously with her hand on the ignition. Clarke’s leg slid around her other side and her good hand came to rest on Lexa’s stomach, and Lexa let out a shaky breath as Clarke’s helmet-clad head leaned onto Lexa’s shoulder.

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

Lexa turned the motorcycle on and pulled out into the deserted street. She loved riding late at night when there was no one else on the road — it felt like she was flying. She left the visor open on her helmet to feel the brisk wind in her face. A few more months and it would be too cold for this even if the roads weren’t inevitably covered in snow.

Clarke shifted as Lexa turned out of the university campus, her hand tightening around Lexa’s waist and oh, Lexa hadn’t thought she’d find anything better than riding her motorcycle late at night, but this might be it. Normally, Lexa would alter her driving late at night when she knew no one was on the streets, taking turns wide and fast, driving through stop signs at deserted intersections, and going out of her way to take a fast street so that she could blast tears into the corners of her eyes with the wind. But now she wound her way through back streets, stopping at every stop sign slowly, gently, making sure not to jostle Clarke, the speckled light from sparse street lights convincing Lexa that she was in a different world, where Clarke’s arm around her and Clarke’s body pressed against her were normal and okay. It wouldn’t last forever.

Lexa pulled into a small parking lot with weeds growing through cracks in the pavement, stopping at one of the four concrete blocks that marked the edges of parking spots. Clarke picked her head up off of Lexa’s shoulder.

“Is this it?” Clarke was presumably looking at the shaggy field bounded by wire fences on three sides and trees on the fourth.

“Not quite.” Lexa made to dismount, not remembering Clarke’s hand until it clenched in her jacket and she froze mid-movement.

“Oh, sorry,” Clarke murmured, clumsily removing her hand, only to place it against Lexa’s back. Lexa stayed frozen in place as Clarke struggled off the motorcycle. Once Clarke was off, Lexa swung her leg over the motorcycle and faced Clarke, who had the helmet under her arm and was looking around the unkempt public park with heavy-lidded eyes. Her gaze ended on Lexa, barely a foot away, and stared unashamedly, her eyes travelling over all of Lexa’s face. “So where to now?”

“Through here.” Lexa ducked her head and led Clarke towards the tree line. This wasn’t real, she reminded herself. Just because the stars were bright overhead and Lexa’s cheeks still tingled from the wind didn’t mean that Clarke was in the same dream that she was.

She slipped between two trees, jumping down a short drop onto a path that wound down a short but steep hill. At the bottom, nestled between the hill and wooden fences on three sides, was a soccer field. Lexa jogged down the hill, looking up at the stars from the bottom of the bowl formed by trees and the tops of suburban houses that pushed up against the wooden fences on all sides.

“I see why you like it.” Clarke was smiling at her when Lexa looked down.

“Sometimes I run or bring a soccer ball, but a lot of the time I just . . . look at the stars.”

“Yeah?” Clarke threw her head back to look at the sky. Lexa could see the bottom of Clarke’s jaw and the way Lexa’s jacket was tight on Clarke’s shoulders and the fact that a little bit more of Clarke’s hair fell to the right than the left.

Clarke sat down in the grass and laid back. “Am I supposed to appreciate how insignificant my troubles are compared to the stars?” When Lexa didn’t reply, too focused on closing her mouth and recovering full use of her body, Clarke looked up at her.

“No.” Lexa sat. “You are supposed to do whatever you want to do, preferably quietly.”

Clarke sat up, still looking at Lexa instead of the stars. “And what do you do when you come here?”

Lexa shrugged. “It depends. Sometimes I need to tire myself, and I run or shoot on one of the goals. Sometimes I . . . think too much. Then I just stand and look up.”

Clarke looked up again, sitting cross-legged, close enough for Lexa to reach out and . . .

“And do the stars help?”

“Not the stars. If you . . .” Lexa hesitated. This might sound stupid to Clarke, hell, it sounded kind of stupid to _her_ , but they were sitting in a soccer field in the middle of the night. It was the time where nothing would sound stupid. “If you look in between the stars, at the black space, and concentrate, sometimes . . . I’ve found that sometimes I can see the stars in perspective, just for a second. They’re not just like two-dimensional lights on the ceiling, they’re floating in space, and I’m — we’re floating in space.”

She stared at Clarke, hoping that Clarke would know what she meant. Clarke just stared up, mouth ajar, hands on her knees, hair spilling over her shoulder. When she looked back at Lexa, her eyes were wide enough that Lexa could see the reflection of a star in them.

“I saw it.”

She smiled an amazed smile at Lexa. Lexa’s world narrowed down to just Clarke and the cold grass under her feet — she would never be this close to Clarke again and she couldn’t let the moment pass.

Lexa put a hand on Clarke’s knee to brace herself as she leaned in, stopping an inch from Clarke’s mouth. No, she couldn’t do this, Clarke wouldn’t —

Clarke leaned forward and pressed her lips to Lexa’s. Lexa closed her eyes, warm and weak and entranced by the soft movements of Clarke’s lips. Lexa felt Clarke’s hand at the back of her neck and let out an involuntary breath into Clarke’s mouth, but Clarke only pulled her closer. Lexa tilted her head to press her lips closer to Clarke’s, who only pushed back harder, her hand tangling in Lexa’s hair. The intensity was followed by a second of calm, lips just barely brushing.

Lexa leaned forward again, but now Clarke’s other hand pushed against her stomach and Clarke pulled away.

“Wait . . .” Clarke breathed.

Lexa sat back on her heels, a dead feeling pooling in her stomach. She supposed she should be ecstatic that Clarke had thought her worthy of this much — it wasn’t like she hadn’t known that Clarke wouldn’t want to be with her in the daylight.

“I just broke up with my boyfriend like . . . yesterday. It wouldn’t be right to do this now.” Clarke’s hand was still in Lexa’s hair, and Lexa could feel Clarke’s blunt fingernails on the back of her neck. “Can we . . . wait? At least until things are a little settled?”

“Of course.” Lexa couldn’t stop her voice from coming out hoarse. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from Clarke either, although she could place her hands firmly in her own lap again.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke was quiet, meant for Lexa and no one else. “And thank you.”

Clarke’s hand left Lexa’s hair, the whisper of her fingers sending shivers down Lexa’s back. Lexa nodded once.

“Of course.”

Clarke said maybe. Clarke said not right now, and she apologized as though that wasn’t more than Lexa had ever dared to hope for. Clarke held her hand and they sat in silence with the smell of grass around them. Never mind sleep, Lexa could stay here all night.


	12. This Isn't About Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it's been a while since my last chapter and tbh I have no excuse really. I'm hoping to finish up the story in the next few chapters -- probably one very long chapter and one or two shorter ones. We'll see how it goes, guys, because I may be moving cross-country (yes, again, let me die) and starting grad school in the meantime.

“Once you’re finished with the poster, email it to Murphy, Bellamy, and me so that we can give you the all clear.”

“Uh, I’m sorry, why do all three of us need to look it over?” Murphy looked at her as if he couldn’t decide if he was flattered or outraged that he’d been included.

“The more people who look it over, the less chance that we make a typo or some other dumb mistake. The _Grounds_ have at least three people check everything before it gets printed, and you’re our best text editor. Don’t worry about the graphic design part, that’s why Bellamy and me are looking it over too, you just make sure the font is right and it sounds good.”

Murphy grunted, but before Clarke could move on to the next item on her agenda, Monroe interrupted her.

“Wait, so once I finish the poster, and send it to you three, and get the all clear, how do I print it?”

“Oh, I’ll handle that.” Clarke waved a hand.

“Really? When?” Bellamy leaned over to face her and she very nearly brought a hand up to massage her temples.

“Whenever I’m free, I’ll drop by Print Services.”

“Print Services is on the other end of campus, it would take like thirty minutes to drop them off, and another thirty to pick them up. When’s the next time you’re going to have a spare thirty minutes? Thanksgiving?”

“I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, Bellamy, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be —”

“Look, Clarke.” She gritted her teeth and forced down her irritation at being interrupted. It was a full meeting, she had to be the responsible one. “We all know that you’re stupidly busy and have other stuff going on. Besides, it’s not like running printing errands is in your job description — just let Monroe handle this, it’ll be fine.”

Clarke stayed silent for a long second, trying to figure out what Bellamy’s game was. She examined his face, looking for a hint of his scheme, but it showed nothing but mild concern.

“Okay, sure. Just email the final version of the poster to Print Services — you can find their email on the university website — and put the amount of copies along with the size and color of paper we want in the body. I’ll email you all of those details before you send it. Then when you pick it up, make sure you get a receipt and bring it back here so we can file it as our first official expense as a student organization.”

Monroe nodded, but didn’t write anything down. Clarke tapped out a reminder to herself in an email draft to send Monroe all the directions later.

“Before you say anything,” Octavia spoke up a few seconds before Clarke was ready to proceed to the next item on the agenda, “yes, I’ve got your list with all the proposed changes to the web design. I’ve already done all the easy ones, and I’m going to get with Bell tonight to work the trickier stuff and get that picture with the _Grounds_ logo added to the template for all of the pages.”

Clarke blinked. That was exactly what her next item was. “Excellent, that all sounds great. If you get stuck, don’t be afraid to grab some extra help for the coding, although I’m not sure who you could get to do that part.”

Bellamy gave her a confused look. “I mean, Raven’s our computer expert, and can’t Wells do webpage design too?”

Shit. Clarke really did not want to do this now. “You can try and get a hold of them, but don’t ask Raven to do anything for the _Grounds_ site — just trust me.”

“Oh yeah, you’re right, I forgot this was for the _Grounds_.” Bellamy nodded. “Is Wells still pissed at them too?”

“Uh . . . Wells is sort of . . . expelled.” There wasn’t really going to be an easy way to rip that bandage off.

Dead silence.

“Sorry, what?” Bellamy frowned at her.

“He got expelled. Yesterday. Over the whole . . . file thing.” She didn’t really want to get too specific in front of the rest of the _Delinquents_ — plausible deniability and all.

“What — but — how?”

“We can talk about that later.” She gave Bellamy a millisecond-long meaningful look that she hoped he knew meant that they would definitely be talking about it later, and turned back to the room. “I was going to wait until the end to make that particular announcement, but you all deserve to know that Wells has been expelled. He was expelled because there is someone, someone who appears to know a great deal about us, who wants to make sure that our partnership with the _Grounds_ fails. I know that some of you have a problem with the _Grounds_ , but right now they’re our only chance of printing a magazine, and since they’re not actively working to sabotage us, at the very least they’re only Public Enemy Number Two.”

“Okay, hold up, you’re telling me there’s someone who’s trying to sabotage us? Who? Because if you know and you aren’t telling us —”

“Murphy, do you really think I wouldn’t tell you if I knew?” Clarke snapped, her temper fraying. “Look, I’m on it and I will let you know if there’s anything you need to know.”

“You’re on it? And you’ll tell us when? The next time someone gets expelled?”

“This isn’t something that’s relevant to us printing the first issue, so let’s just —”

“He’s right, Clarke.” Clarke blinked, too surprised to be angry. Murphy she expected to be irritating, but Nathan Miller interrupting her was new. “People are getting expelled? I heard some of you got attacked or something? That might be relevant to our ability to make a magazine.”

“Yeah, I’d like to have some say in how we deal with people who are trying to get us expelled, thank you very much!” Murphy chimed back in.

Clarke took a deep breath, trying to control the hot breathless frustration clogging her chest. “I understand your concerns, but this really isn’t —”

“Hey, Clarke.” Bellamy put a gentle hand on her forearm, which so dumbfounded Clarke that she just stared at his hand instead of telling him exactly how she felt about being interrupted for the third time in the last minute. “You’re right, this isn’t something that you need to worry about, necessarily. But the rest of us kind of want to worry about it, so how about we deal with it? I’ll put together a couple of people and we’ll deal with it. Don’t worry, we’ll do it off the clock — some of us do actually have free time.”

Everything about that sounded like a bad idea. Murphy’s cold look at Bellamy promised hostility in whatever group Bellamy put together, Bellamy and Murphy together would be sure to go straight after the _Grounds_ , she would have to share information about the file with even more people, and one wrong move by anyone in that group could lead to more expulsions. Unfortunately, it didn’t look like anyone was going to let this go. She would just have to trust that the crazier plans would get bogged down in committee.

Her phone buzzed.

“Okay, sure. Talk to me afterwards, Bellamy, I’ll give you the details.”

“Great. Hands up, who wants to help me on this?”

Clarke gritted her teeth. Five volunteers. She tapped another reminder to herself: ‘watch Bellamy’.

Her phone buzzed again.

“Okay, we just have one last thing to do.” Peaceful quiet resumed as Clarke continued. “We’ll be running ads in the paper, which comes out on Friday, and putting up posters Friday, and you will all be telling everyone you know to submit to us. We just need to figure out what the submissions deadline should be. I was leaning towards two weeks or so, because that’s about how long it would take me to plan and put something together. We don’t want it to take too long, because then people will forget about us.”

“Why not just make it a week?” Octavia shrugged. “Worst case scenario, we push it back if we don’t get enough.”

“I figured people would need more time than that . . .” Clarke trailed off to allow the inevitable interruption.

“I mean, just the people in this room could easily fill a first edition,” Bellamy pointed out. “We want to get ourselves out there as quickly as possible for this first edition. In the issue, we can announce the date of the next one and ask for submissions, so that people can see what an issue looks like and then have plenty of time to put something together for the next one.”

Clarke wasn’t sure if that was actually a good idea or she was just too frazzled to find any problems with it. Her phone buzzed again.

“Sounds like a plan. I’ll put it in the ad for the _Grounds_. Does anyone else have anything?” Clarke waited a full half-second before plowing on. “Okay, let’s plan on another full meeting Monday after the ads go out and we can see what sort of submissions we have coming in. Just shoot me an email if you have any questions in the meantime.”

Her phone buzzed again as people started standing to leave. Clarke didn’t move — the room was much too small for twenty people to attempt to move around at once.

“Okay Clarke, what’s the deal with Wells?” Bellamy couldn’t wait just five seconds, could he?

“Give me a minute, Bellamy.” She conspicuously took her phone out, which stopped her from glaring at Bellamy, but was probably equally rude.

**Wells (1:47 pm):** _Hey, if you have a free hour some time this week, I’d love to get coffee or brunch or something._

**Lexa (1:47 pm):** _Check your email._

**Lexa (1:48 pm):** _It’s important._

**Lexa (1:49 pm):** _And not in a good way._

That wasn’t what Clarke had expected. Clarke couldn’t tell if Lexa was worried or uncomfortable talking to her or just particularly terse today, and she involuntarily remembered the slight quirk at the edge of Lexa’s mouth that had been the only tell that she was being sarcastic. Clarke’s memories of the night before were a little hazy from stress and sleep deprivation, but she could still recall the weight of Lexa’s lips and her fingers flexed with the ghost sensation of Lexa’s hand in hers.

It was totally Clarke’s fault that this was awkward now, of course, and she knew it. She couldn’t start something with Lexa the literal day after breaking up with her boyfriend, not without leaving room for reasonable suspicions about what her and Lexa had been doing while Clarke was still dating Finn. Lexa deserved a more auspicious start to a relationship than that, no matter how much Clarke ached for her.

“Uh, Clarke? Everyone’s gone.”

“Right, yeah, sorry, I was just . . . . Anyway, you need details about what to look into, right?”

Bellamy’s eyes only slowly moved from Clarke’s phone back to her face. “Yeah. What happened to Wells? And why didn’t you tell anyone? And who’s out to get us? Is it because of the file thing? And —”

Clarke relished the chance to be the one to interrupt Bellamy for a change. “The administration found a copy of the file on the _Grounds_ computers, and they were threatening to expel the whole leadership of the _Grounds_ , which would have screwed us over too.”

“How is that Wells’ problem? Wait, they found the file that we moved into the public drive? So this is our fault?”

“No, that’s the thing, Lexa deleted the file we put on there. And someone tipped off the administration, they didn’t just find it.”

Bellamy was quiet for a lot longer than Clarke expected. “Huh. How did Wells get expelled, then? He took the blame, didn’t he?”

“Yeah, basically. So to find the real person, we need to find someone who’s got something against us, and knew about the file, and knew that the _Grounds_ —”

“I got it. Don’t worry, I’ll get this figured out.”

“Really?” Clarke doubted that.

“Look, Clarke, we get it, you’re smart and responsible and that’s great. But you’re not the only person in this club —”

“Do you think I don’t know that?” Clarke snapped.

“Yeah, I do! If someone else messes something up, it’s not your fault! If someone pulls some dirty trick, it’s not on you, okay, so you don’t need to act like everything we do is your responsibility.”

“Yes it is, that’s how it works, Bellamy! I’ve got to make sure this works, and if I can’t do it, well, if I can’t do it . . .” She didn’t know how to end that sentence.

He sighed. “Look. To most of the people in here, this magazine wasn’t, like, a real thing — they didn’t think it was actually going to happen. And it wasn’t a real thing, honestly, not until, I don’t know, yesterday or so. As long as it wasn’t real, it was fine for us to . . . do the things we did. But now the _Delinquents_ is a real art magazine or student organization or whatever, so neither of us can just force things to happen any more. We’ve got to start acting like this is a real organization.”

“Oh shit that reminds me we need to write a constitution.” She tapped out another bullet point on her to-do list. “I’ll send you and maybe Octavia and a few other people an email, we need to decide on our leadership structure and put a group together to write out the constitution. We’ll probably need to look at the constitutions of some other organizations and see —”

“I can’t believe that’s what you got out of what I said.” Bellamy hung his head with melodramatic despair and then looked back up at her. “I tell you what. You can be in charge of the constitution if you’ll let me deal with finding out who’s out to get us.”

“No, I can’t be in charge of the constitution, no one can, the whole point is that —”

“Clarke. You’re the leader. Or the president, or chancellor, or whatever you want to call the head of the art magazine organization. Do you really think anyone here is going to argue with you on that?”

Clarke just blinked at him. She’d sort of figured people would be lining up to argue with her on that one, and Bellamy would be at the front of the line.

“Okay fine, don’t answer that question. You do the constitution, you’ll be great at that, I’ll deal with the other stuff, the rest of the kids will make art, we’ll do a magazine, it’ll be fine. Just, try to chill a little bit, okay?”

“I have literally no idea how to do that.”

Bellamy laughed and stood up to leave, and Clarke was left alone with the knowledge that she wasn’t joking even a little bit.

***

Shirley Wallace, Vice President of Student Life ([swallace@um.edu](mailto:swallace@um.edu))

Subject: Ongoing Judicial Affairs Investigation

Clarke,

During the course of an ongoing Judicial Affairs investigation into documents discovered on the computers of the _Grounds_ , university officials discovered information that also figured prominently in the decision to place you on academic probation earlier this year.

The investigation lead us to Wells Jaha, a young man who I believe is a close friend of yours. After an investigation into his connection to privileged financial documents, Judicial Affairs has decided to expel Wells Jaha. I have been in close communication with his father and with him over the course of this difficult time for him and his family, and I would like to extend the same favor to you.

Please join me this afternoon at 4:30 pm for a brief meeting where we can discuss any knowledge you may have of Wells Jaha’s possession of the university’s financial information. At this time, I would also like to discuss ways for myself or my office to provide you with support. I understand you have a great deal of commitments and I would like to ensure that we provide you with the resources to successfully navigate this part of your life.

Shirley

Sent from my iPhone

***

“Is this what you meant?”

“Yes.” Lexa looked tense and Clarke wondered if it was bad that she wasn’t at all worried about this email.

“I mean, we knew this was coming.”

“Did we?”

“Their finances have only come up twice before, and I’m the only link in common between them, of course she’s going to want to talk to me. Even if she didn’t suspect I was involved, it would just be the thorough thing to do.”

Lexa leaned back in her chair and sighed. When she reached up to run a hand through her wild hair, Clarke jerked her eyes away, scanning the _Grounds_ office for something to keep her thoughts off Lexa’s hands. And lips. “You’re right, I suppose. Shirley is nothing if not thorough.”

“Yeah, I should know.” Clarke had a second of flashbacks to intense one-on-one meetings.

Lexa was opening her mouth to say something, but was interrupted by someone walking into the _Grounds_ office.

“Hey, uh, Clarke? I looked in your office but they said you’d be here.”

“Finn? What the — what are you doing here?”

“Can I talk to you real quick?” He glanced at Lexa, who Clarke hoped wasn’t looking too hostile. “In private?”

“Um, yes?” Clarke followed him as he walked out of the office and then out of the building. “Are you okay?”

Finn looked around nervously. “Yeah, it’s — it’s about the file that was on the _Grounds_ computer.”

“WHAT?!”

“Shh!” Finn dragged her into the loading dock behind the commons building.

“How the absolute shit do you know about that?!” Clarke whisper-screamed.

“Because —” Finn paused. “Okay, don’t freak out, but because I was the one who put the file on the _Grounds_ computer.”

“You WH —” Clarke cut herself off. “Wait, but why, Finn? Where did you get a copy of — who are you working with? Why would you —”

“Whoa, dude, one question at a time.”

“No! Not one question at a time! Tell me what the shit is going on!”

“In my defense, I was trying to tell you before I was rudely —” Clarke only barely held in a scream. “Okay, okay. First of all, I still have no idea what was in that file that got you guys in so much trouble, I didn’t know any of this was going to happen.”

“Then why —”

“Raven told me —”

“RAVEN —”

“Let me finish!” Clarke took a deep, shaky breath as he continued. “I was talking with Raven, and she told me you were in trouble, that people from the newspaper had attacked you and her, and that they were looking for some file that would get whoever had it expelled. She said you had it and it would get you expelled, and . . . I couldn’t let that happen.”

“So wait, _you’re_ the one who put it on the _Grounds_ computers?? How did you even have a copy?”

“Raven had a copy, she told me about it. I just took it off her computer.”

“How did she —” Clarke shook her head. She supposed it was dumb of her to think that Raven wouldn’t keep a copy for herself.

“Clarke, I swear I didn’t know it would get Wells expelled, I thought it would just get the _Grounds_ off your back. I knew you were hurt, but I didn’t know they did it to you, and when Raven told me, I had to do something.”

“So you thought —”

“I thought that if they had their file back they wouldn’t go after you, and then I figured they deserved some payback for hurting you.”

Clarke squeezed her forehead with both hands. “That’s — this is —”

“But yeah, once I heard about Wells, I knew it was my fault. I’m just letting you know because I’m telling Student Life, or Judicial Affairs, or whoever I need to tell. I’m not going to let Wells get in trouble for me.”

“Are you crazy?! They’ll expel you! We can help you, the art magazine will make sure —”

“No, Clarke. This is on me, I have to try and make this right. Besides, I bet you could always get me a job as a secretary for the art department or something, right?”

Clarke used to love Finn’s crooked smile. “Finn, you don’t understand! _They’re cutting the art department_.”

“What? How would the _Grounds_ do that?”

“Not the _Grounds_! The college! That’s what’s in the file, Finn: the college is going to cut the entire art department, and a lot of other stuff besides, and they don’t want anyone to know until it’s too late.”

“What?” Finn sounded politely confused. “What will you do if your major gets cut?”

“What will _I_ do?? I’m a senior, I already have enough classes for a major — what about everyone else?! What about Murphy, and Miller, and Octavia, and . . .” she stopped before she accidentally said Wells’ name. “This isn’t about me! You didn’t need to defend me, and now you’ve —” she stopped herself again and sighed. “Just . . . just don’t worry about it and let me handle this.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry, Clarke, but I’ve got to try. I knew Wells, and he deserves to know what happened.”

“You can! You don’t have to just throw away your —”

“I really can’t, Clarke. I already emailed the Vice President lady, it’s going to happen one way or the other, no matter what. I won’t tell them that you had it, or about Raven or anything, I just need them to know that it wasn’t Wells.”

“They might not just expel you, Finn. They could try and sue you, or press criminal charges — you can’t just confess and hope it doesn’t go too badly.”

“I can, and I will. I know what it’s like to face criminal charges, remember?”

Clarke blinked. She had forgotten that he’d gone to jail before she’d met him, although he’d never told her why.

“I . . . you never really talked about it.”

He shrugged. “I mean, it wasn’t too bad, it wasn’t like I was an adult or anything. But I know what I’m doing, I just wanted you to hear it from me. I guess I wanted to talk to you again, too.”

“Oh, Finn . . .” Now Clarke felt like shit.

“No, this was good. I talked to you, now I’m good. I’ll see you around, Clarke.”

Clarke watched him walk away for a long second, before storming back inside.

Lexa looked up as Clarke slammed the door to the office closed, and Clarke could easily see the trepidation on Lexa’s normally blank face.

“Clarke . . .?”

“We’re printing the report. Today.”


End file.
